PRIVATE BUSINESS

University of Wales, Cardiff Bill [Lords]

Read a Second time, and committed.

Oral Answers to Questions

TRANSPORT

The Secretary of State was asked—

Speed Cameras

Tony Wright: When he expects to bring forward proposals to amend the law on speed cameras.

David Jamieson: The Road Traffic Act 1991 provides for the use of cameras, and the Vehicles (Crime) Act 2001 provides for their operation to be met from fixed penalty fines. The recent independent review of the first three years of the safety camera programme confirmed its effectiveness, with a 40 per cent. reduction in the number of people killed or seriously injured at camera sites. We have no plans to amend the law on cameras. However, when the legislative opportunity arises, we propose to shift from the present three-point fixed penalty for all categories of speeding to establish a band of penalties from two to six points to distinguish between higher and lower offences.

Tony Wright: I am grateful for that answer, but my support for speed cameras somewhat diminished recently after I was done by a camera for driving at 37 mph. I have discovered since that different speed camera areas impose penalties at different speeds, which does not seem right. I have also discovered that there is no proportionality between excess speed and the penalty and points imposed. Will my hon. Friend make progress with the review and introduce more flexibility, because public support for the system will otherwise be eroded?

David Jamieson: I congratulate my hon. Friend on his frankness and honesty. He knows that if he exceeds the speed limit, he runs the risk of getting a penalty. He is right, however, to recognise the concern expressed by many that those who exceed the speed limit by a small amount receive the same penalty as those who exceed it more seriously. It is important for the punishment to fit the crime, so we will look for a legislative opportunity in a road safety Bill to introduce a new penalty points system under which the punishment more accurately reflects the severity of the offence.

Andrew Murrison: What will the Minister do for the increasing number of motorists who appear to be troubled by notifications sent out wrongly by agencies because of inadequate cross-checking of vehicles by speed enforcement agencies or congestion charging agencies?

David Jamieson: The position is very simple. If people want to challenge a speeding offence, they have the opportunity first, to send for photographic evidence, and secondly, to challenge the penalty in court. For parking and other offences, they may go to the local authority, then the adjudicator. There are plenty of checks and balances for people who may be wrongly accused.

David Kidney: As a result of opposition in some quarters, safety camera partnerships are sticking rigidly to the guidance that there must have been lots of casualties at a site during previous years. Does my hon. Friend agree that that sometimes means that avoidable deaths happen because of a lack of speed cameras? Does he agree that a good example of that are those motorcyclists who crash and die at sites where there is no history of previous crashes? Should safety camera partnerships not be allowed the discretion—we should be open about this—to site speed cameras in places where they anticipate that accidents and deaths will happen if there is no intervention?

David Jamieson: As a general rule, we want cameras to be put only in places that meet the strict criteria on numbers of deaths and injuries. As my hon. Friend knows, there is a certain flexibility in the partnership scheme to give the police and local authorities some ability to site mobile cameras, especially in places where they anticipate problems.

Greg Knight: I do not want to change the rules.

David Jamieson: The right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight) may not want to change the rules, but I have letters from Conservative council leaders who want the rules relaxed. He might want to get in touch with his local authorities to find out what they are saying.

Greg Knight: What is his name?

David Jamieson: Well, I have a letter here from—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Minister should send a copy of the letter to the right hon. Gentleman.

Damian Green: I am glad that the Conservative party policy of proportionality for sentencing is gaining more support among Labour Back Benchers. Will the Minister address the serious problem of the number of people killed on the roads? Will he comment on figures from the Kent and Medway safety camera partnership showing that an average of 11 people were killed every year at the worst black spots before the partnership was formed and the cameras put up, but that the average number killed since the partnership started is 12? The project manager for the partnership is honest about that and says:
	"The number of fatalities across the county is staying fairly stubborn  . . . It's not as encouraging as we would like."
	Will the Minister be equally honest and admit that cameras alone are not cutting the numbers killed on our roads? Does he agree that if he wants to reduce the unacceptable death toll on the roads, he will have to change his blinkered approach?

David Jamieson: We have never said that cameras are the only answer to preventing death and injury on our roads. The hon. Gentleman will know from the figures for Kent of the substantial reduction in the number of people killed and seriously injured where the cameras have been placed. The overall figures for the number of people killed on the roads—I have said that this should not be a party political point—show, sadly, that some of them are motorcyclists, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) said. Incidents sometimes happen on country lanes and in other places where cameras would have no direct effect, so we are considering other measures as well. However, as these are the last Transport questions this term, I hope that before we complete them the hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Green) will tell us where the 4,000 wrongly placed camera sites are, because he has not told us yet.

Andrew Miller: As patron of RoadPeace, I welcome the experiment conducted to allow the organisation's "Remember Me" poster to be placed on the side of cameras. Does my hon. Friend agree that that helps the motorist to put the issue into context—that the cameras are placed there to reduce deaths on our roads?

David Jamieson: I have seen that campaign. We wanted the cameras to be conspicuous and signed because we wanted not to catch people but to slow them down. I have looked at the RoadPeace proposal to put a figure or something at the side of the road depicting someone who may have been injured or killed. We will continue to consider it, but we would not want it to distract drivers and be a further road safety disbenefit. I would also be worried in case such a memorial to someone who had died was defaced, removed or damaged. That could make the grief for the families who have lost someone even greater.

John Thurso: The Minister knows of my support for appropriately sited cameras as a tool for reducing casualties and saving lives. Is he aware, however, of recent media reports that call into question the statistical accuracy of the benefits of cameras through something called regression to the mean, which is not taken into account? Will he look into those claims, as it is clearly vital that the public should have full confidence in the benefits of cameras in order to support them?

David Jamieson: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman and his party for their support for the road camera partnerships and for reduction of death and injury on the roads. That just shows that there is good sense on the issue in his party, which has yet to prevail in the Conservative party.
	I have heard the accusations about regression to the mean. I have some slight capacity in that respect, having been a mathematician before I joined the House, and I still remember some of my statistics lessons. The size of the sample—the number of different cameras involved—means that the accuracy of the figures is robust. I have asked people with a much greater facility in statistics than I to ensure that the figures are correct.

Light Rail Systems

Tam Dalyell: What recent representations he has received on ultra-light railway systems.

Alistair Darling: Since January, my Department has received 13 letters on ultra-light railway systems.

Tam Dalyell: Are James Skinner's claims for the fuel efficiency of ultra-light rail convincing?

Alistair Darling: As my hon. Friend knows, of the 13 letters that I have received, 13 came from Mr. James Skinner. What he and, indeed, other operators propose does have some attraction, and the Government have supported that. However, we have reached the stage at which Mr. Skinner and others need to engage in a commercial undertaking to pursue these matters so that they can be developed further. The Government cannot give grants to individuals here and there without the prospect of commercial development. I have explained all that to Mr. Skinner in nine replies. I dare say this exchange will prompt another letter, but I shall stick at it.

Peter Viggers: For months, Hampshire county council and Portsmouth city council have pleaded for a funding decision on the light rapid transit system between Fareham, Gosport and Portsmouth, which is thought to be one of the most attractive in the country. Is the Secretary of State aware that the compulsory purchase orders are to go ahead today? It is monstrous that that should take place in the absence of a decision. What is the reason for the delay on the funding decision, and when can we expect it?

Alistair Darling: In approximately one hour.

Greg Knight: Does the Secretary of State agree that something that light rail and standard rail systems have in common is the fact that too many disabled people find journeys intimidating or impossible? Does he further agree that at the current rate of progress our rail systems will not be disabled-friendly until 2035? Will he get a grip on the problem and take action to make rail journeys more accessible and accommodating for people with a disability?

Alistair Darling: The right hon. Gentleman's general point is a good one—we should make sure that transport is accessible. As for railway carriages, my recollection is that they will be compliant by 2025, not 2035.

Greg Knight: That is still too long.

Alistair Darling: Let me explain something to the right hon. Gentleman. The average life of railway carriages is 25 to 30 years. If we made them completely compliant, rolling stock would have to be replaced much earlier, which costs money. It is a bit rich of a party that is committed to cut transport spending by £2 billion to lecture us on doing things quicker. We are replacing most of our rolling stock so that next year, I think I am right in saying, Britain will have the youngest rolling stock fleet anywhere in Europe.

Salisbury-Exeter Rail Line

Hugo Swire: What recentstudies he has made of the possibility of reinstating dual tracking on the Waterloo line from Salisbury to Exeter.

Kim Howells: The Strategic Rail Authority examined the case for dual tracking in 2000, when tendering for the South West Trains franchise. Given the costs involved and current resources, there is little prospect of that work being taken forward in the short term. Our immediate concern is to make the most efficient use of the existing network infrastructure. I welcome the hon. Gentleman's interest, however, because we certainly need to identify the stretches of infrastructure that could most benefit from track modification.

Hugo Swire: I am grateful but depressed by the Minister's reply. We certainly do not need to identify a problem on the Salisbury-Exeter line, as it is already well known. Devon and Cornwall business council and the East Devon chambers of commerce are convinced that the future economic prosperity of the south-west peninsula depends on two things—the immediate dualling of the A303 and improvements to rail, freight and passenger services, particularly on the Waterloo-Exeter line. Exactly four years ago, as the Minister mentioned, the Strategic Rail Authority was approached by South West Trains, which wanted to upgrade the track so that it could deal with speeds of up to 100 mph. Given that 42 per cent. of delays on that line are between Salisbury and Exeter, when will he be able to give better news to my constituents and others living in the south-west peninsula?

Kim Howells: The hon. Gentleman has researched his subject very well, as demonstrated by the length of his question. However, he has a much better chance of getting a positive answer from the Government than from his Front-Bench colleagues, who want to cut spending on the railways and transport.

Robert Walter: This particular line is a success story, but it has a problem with capacity. What reassurance can the Minister give my constituents, who felt at the time when the franchise was advertised that there was a definite commitment to dualling the track? Until the track is dualled, trains will just become more overcrowded and people will go back on to the roads.

Kim Howells: There is no question but that that is a crucial stretch of railway, but there are other ways of increasing capacity, such as lengthening trains. I give the hon. Members for East Devon (Mr. Swire) and for North Dorset (Mr. Walter) an undertaking to look at the issue and to talk to the SRA and Network Rail about it. Capacity, as the hon. Member for North Dorset will know, has already increased dramatically—the number of passengers using that stretch of line has grown over the past few years because there are more trains. We can do an awful lot with modern signalling technology to increase capacity, but longer trains might provide the answer in the short term. As I told the hon. Member for East Devon, I am prepared to look at the issue and engage in discussion with the SRA about increasing capacity still further.

Passenger Transport Authorities

Dave Watts: What plans he has to change the role of the passenger transport authorities in England.

Tony McNulty: We have no specific plans to change the role of passenger transport authorities in England. However, "The Future of Rail" White Paper sets out new arrangements for passenger transport executives in England, in relation to their rail functions. These changes will bring about some consequential changes of function for the PTAs.

Dave Watts: I very much welcome last week's announcement, which gave more powers to the passenger transport authorities. May I encourage my hon. Friend to go a little further and provide even more powers to excellent PTAs such as Merseyside to find ways to improve bus and rail services?

Tony McNulty: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's comments. He will know that the overarching group for the PTEs, PTEG—the passenger transport executive group—welcomed the comments in the rail review. My hon. Friend will also know that we published the rail review last week and that the statement that will follow today's questions deals with all other aspects of transport. I hope that my hon. Friend will be keen enough to stay in the Chamber and listen to the statement.

David Clelland: I support my hon. Friend the Member for St. Helens, North (Mr. Watts) in his pleas to the Minister to give passenger transport authorities more power over private local bus companies. Is my hon. Friend the Minister aware that the Go-Ahead group and its subsidiary, Go North East, propose severely to curtail bus services in west and central Gateshead in my constituency? Will he please look at that as a matter of urgency? Surely private bus companies ought to be subject to the same kind of public service agreements as local authorities and other public bodies, so that people who use the services can have some influence over them.

Tony McNulty: I thank my hon. Friend for his kind comments about the rail review and what we have done with PTEs. I was recently up in Newcastle, which I think is fairly close to Gateshead, to discuss a range of matters with Nexus. If I need to return or to speak to the firm down in London about specific aspects of bus services, I will be more than happy to do so.

Bus Regulation

Graham Stringer: What plans he has to re-regulate buses; and if he will make a statement.

Alistair Darling: I shall set out proposals in relation to buses in my statement that follows Question Time.

Graham Stringer: My right hon. Friend leaves me in a difficult position. I assure him that I shall listen carefully to his statement later. Does he agree that we can no longer justify having one system of bus regulation in London, which leads to clear accountability for public money, and another system of bus regulation, or deregulation, in the rest of the country, which leads to a more expensive system, no clear accountability for money, and profits nearly twice as high outside Greater London than in Greater London?

Alistair Darling: My hon. Friend puts me in a difficult position as well, but let me try to be helpful. The regime for buses in London has always been different, as my hon. Friend knows. It is, though, quite an expensive scheme. Bus subsidy in London has gone up dramatically, and it will go up still further over the next few years. In the rest of the country, it is clear that patronage has gone up in areas where there have been good local authorities and good bus companies—for example, in Brighton, Leeds, Oxford, Cambridge and Edinburgh. It is striking that in some places, the system has worked well. In other parts of the country, there have been difficulties. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for one thing: he has promised to be present for my statement, so that is the one. If he sticks around, he might catch your eye again, Mr. Speaker, and I shall be able to say something more.

Anne McIntosh: Can I tempt the Secretary of State to say a little about how privatisation has helped rural bus services and patronage? In particular, is he aware of the problems in north Yorkshire, where some bus services are not as frequent as residents would like, especially to enable them to attend hospital appointments?

Alistair Darling: I am not sure whether the hon. Lady is trying to make out that privatisation or deregulation is a good or a bad thing. She is wearing yellow, so perhaps she is in Liberal Democrat mode and is taking both sides of the argument. As she well knows, local authorities and her council in particular have the power to provide more bus services if they want to. Opposition Members sometimes overlook the fact that the remedy sometimes lies rather closer to home than here.

Jim Dobbin: I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Stringer), because the same bus company serves both our constituencies, and I am still getting letters of complaint about it.
	I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on his decision to take greater control over the rail network. I, too, have been convinced to stay for his statement; he will have a packed house. I hope that he intends to consider doing the same with the buses as with the railways so as to give passenger transport authorities greater control over how they are run.

Alistair Darling: In order not to reduce the excitement, I suggest that if my hon. Friend cares to stick around he will learn more. Buses are not quite the same as railways, but some changes are necessary, and I shall set them out shortly.

Congestion (Southend)

Teddy Taylor: What assessment he has made of traffic congestion in Southend-on-Sea; and what is his policy   on the construction of a ring road around the borough.

Tony McNulty: The assessment of traffic congestion in Southend is, in the first instance, a matter for the borough council as the local transport authority. We look to it and to other local interested parties to bring forward proposals for a ring road if they consider that it should be a candidate for Government funding, and we will duly assess it in those terms should it ever arise.

Teddy Taylor: Does the Minister accept that the residents of Shoeburyness, to the east of Southend, go through nightmares every day trying to get through the serious and worsening traffic congestion on the arterial road? Would not local authorities and others take the issue more seriously if the Government were to indicate that they would not allow more development on Government-owned land in Shoeburyness? As this is a desperately serious problem, should not the Government take the initiative?

Tony McNulty: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I know that he has written to my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning about Shoeburyness, growth areas, east of England regional assembly transport plans, and the London to Southend study. Should those form the basis of subsequent plans and applications from Southend borough council for a ring road, we will consider that with heightened interest.

Rail Investment

Peter Luff: Which body will have future responsibility for setting priorities for rail investment.

Alistair Darling: In future, the Government will have control of the level of public expenditure and set the national strategy for the railways, but operational responsibility will pass to Network Rail. Full details of the responsibilities and future structure of the rail industry are set out in the White Paper that I published last week.

Peter Luff: I wonder whether I can tease out that answer a little more. I have three very different rail investment needs in my constituency. One—the small change in Network Rail's budget to increase capacity between Worcester and Droitwich by new signal and new track—is quite modest. The second—a private sector bid to build a new Worcester Parkway railway station—is a significant investment that will also involve public money. The third is a major re-dualling exercise between Worcester and Oxford to improve reliability for passengers on that line. Each is very different from the others. Who will decide between them and set the priorities in the new railway environment?

Alistair Darling: In future, those matters will be decided by Network Rail unless they involve major investment, in which case they will come to the Department because we have to provide such funding anyway.
	In relation to the particular problem that the hon. Gentleman raised last week concerning the trains from Worcester to Birmingham, the SRA, which will deal with such matters on a day-to-day basis until it is wound up next year, is to carry out a consultation exercise later this year as part of the route utilisation strategy.
	On investment, the hon. Gentleman will have to square his remarks with the fact that he supports a proposal to cut transport spending by £2 billion. That is not the way to get more railways.

Kelvin Hopkins: My right hon. Friend may not yet have seen a report published this morning by Catalyst, the left-wing think-tank. It shows that in the eight years before privatisation, Government support for railways was on average a quarter of European average spending, yet in the same eight years productivity in British Rail was substantially higher than the average for European railways. Despite my right hon. Friend's welcome statement, does he accept that we will not get real value for money from the public purse until the railways are back in public ownership?

Alistair Darling: No, I do not. I have said that many times before. My hon. Friend needs to reflect on the simple fact that every week we spend about £73 million of public money and get about £73 million of private money. If we nationalise the railways, we say goodbye to £73 million a week. Equally, we find that buying back the railways would cost perhaps in excess of £25 billion, which we do not happen to have in the till at the moment. If my hon. Friend does not believe me, I can do no better than to refer him to ASLEF, whose input into the rail review was quite interesting. It said:
	"The proper debate should not be about public or private ownership but about the appropriate relationship and dividing line between the two."
	I commend that statement to him.

John Horam: Whoever decides priorities on rail investment—I am not clear who it will be; it seems to depend on size—will the Secretary of State give me an undertaking that he will give higher priority to the many relatively inexpensive, small-scale schemes in the London area that could make such a big difference to the plight of the London commuter? I am thinking of an extra platform at London Bridge, for example. Will he undertake to give that kind of scheme a higher priority?

Alistair Darling: Those are matters that Network Rail will need to consider, but a number of measures have already been put in place. Two major measures are helping London commuters and the hon. Gentleman's constituents in particular. One is the upgrading of the power supply to trains going south of the River Thames, which is costing just under £1 billion. That was money that Railtrack did not even think about spending, so it is an example of how additional money is making a difference. The hon. Gentleman will also have noticed that we have new rolling stock in all London stations, particularly those from which trains go south of the river. It is now very obvious that that rolling stock is being put in place. At some point, the hon. Gentleman should have a word with his Front-Bench colleagues, because none of that could be done if £2 billion were cut from transport spending.

Bill Olner: The Minister will be aware that Nuneaton has had two brand new platforms as part of the west coast main line modernisation, but in the new set-up of changes in responsibilities, who will look at getting value for money from the contractors who work for Network Rail?

Alistair Darling: Network Rail will, and the contracts will be supervised by the rail regulator, who has imposed a requirement to find 31 per cent. efficiencies, making about £1.5 billion a year, which is quite a significant sum. I welcome what my hon. Friend said about the west coast main line. When the first phase is completed at the end of September, it will make for a much better journey. I know that it has been a long haul and that there has been a lot of disruption, but it will make journeys better. This is an example of what can be done if Governments are prepared to make steady, sustained high levels of investment, as opposed to cutting transport spending, which would have completely the opposite effect.

Pete Wishart: I suppose this question would be a bit easier to answer in Scotland, as the Secretary of State helpfully transferred power to the Scottish Executive in his statement last week. Can he confirm that the necessary resources will accompany the transfer of power, so that the Scottish Executive will be able to pursue their rail objectives and priorities? Will he tell us how Scotland's share is to be calculated, given that he is about to announce massive infrastructure building in London and the south-east on the Crossrail project?

Alistair Darling: We are also spending rather large sums in other parts of the country. In particular, Network Rail spends more in Scotland than it gets back in track access charges. One of the reasons why the Forth bridge, which we all know and love, has been kept going is that Scotland has that bigger spending power. That is all part of the benefit of being part of the United Kingdom, on which the hon. Gentleman might like to reflect. On the resource transfer, I said last week that that was something that we and the Scottish Executive needed to discuss. However, the general principle behind my proposal has been widely welcomed in Scotland. There are advantages to being part of the United Kingdom, as most people in Scotland accept. That is why the poor hon. Gentleman is sitting there all on his own.

Gwyneth Dunwoody: Does the Secretary of State accept that it is consistency of investment that is warmly welcomed, along with the fact that the Government are committed to long-term plans? Will he give us an undertaking, however, that he will look closely at the rate of return of contractors and rolling stock companies, which really are walking away with gold bars at the expense of the taxpayer?

Alistair Darling: Again, if my hon. Friend is around shortly, she will hear that I have more to say about long-term spending plans when I set out the spending plans for some years to come. On value for money, she is quite right; she is equally right about the rolling stock companies. Last week in my statement, I specifically said that the contracts that were signed at the time of privatisation did not represent good value for money, and that we need to ensure that we get better value for money. I am sure that she and her Committee will return to that issue sooner rather than later.

Tim Yeo: The Secretary of State acknowledged in an earlier answer the vital role that is played in investment by the private sector. Does he recognise that investment by train operators would increase substantially if the Government replaced the present system of two-year rolling franchises with contracts that gave the train operators a long enough period in which to make investments for the benefit of passengers and to see a return on those investments? Why is it the Government's policy to cut private investment in railways?

Alistair Darling: I think that I was kind enough, as the hon. Gentleman acknowledged, to send him my rail review proposals more than a week ago. He will have seen, therefore, that our proposal is not for a two-year rolling contract. There was a press report to that effect, which the hon. Gentleman seems to have confined himself to citing. I advise him that that is never a great idea. We envisage a seven-year, renewable franchise. In addition to cost and performance, the company's past performance would be taken into account. Interestingly, after last week's announcement the rail companies responded positively, because they recognise that it is a much better system than we have at present. The hon. Gentleman tries to make out that if he cuts £2 billion from transport spending he will recoup it from the private sector, but there is not a shred of evidence to suggest that. Cuts of £2 billion in transport spending would have a devastating effect on rail and road services.

Concessionary Fares

Peter Pike: What recent action his Department has taken to review the operation of pensioner concessionary fare schemes in England.

Tony McNulty: We are considering what improvements can be made to the administration of concessionary travel schemes in England for the benefit of local authorities, transport operators and concessionaires. We have no plans to change the statutory minimum requirement for concessionary travel for older and disabled people, or to prevent local authorities from offering more generous schemes.

Peter Pike: The operation of a statutory scheme for minimal provision throughout the whole country is very welcome, but does my hon. Friend recognise that people in many parts of the country have considerable concerns when they look at the London scheme, which offers the freedom pass, and other parts of the country that offer free travel? Why cannot people living in every part of this country have as good a scheme as London has?

Tony McNulty: As part of the spending review White Paper, we have undertaken to review the administration of concessionary fare schemes to see whether there is scope to simplify their operation, particularly in relation to the examples quoted by my hon. Friend. I accept that disparity between neighbouring authorities' schemes does not work in many people's favour.

Angela Watkinson: When the Minister conducts his review, will he consider devising some means whereby local authorities can calculate the value for money that they get for their contributions to schemes such as the London-wide freedom pass? Authorities such as the London borough of Havering have no means of knowing how many journeys they receive in return for their contributions. As we know, some pensioners make extremely good, frequent use of the pass, whereas others who are entitled to it put it behind the clock where it gathers dust, but both cost the council the same.

Tony McNulty: If that is the emergence of a nascent Tory policy on concessionary fares—that they should be means-tested, and that pensioners in Havering should have their number of journeys restricted—I will pass that on to the local Labour party in Havering. I am sure that it will review it with some interest.

John Grogan: Will my hon. Friend congratulate the Yorkshire regional assembly of local councils, which, following a campaign by the Wetherby, Boston Spa and Tadcaster News, has set up a feasibility study to examine the possibility of mutual recognition of bus passes across the county of Yorkshire? If that comes off, it will allow pensioners from Selby district, for example, to travel in West Yorkshire and enjoy cheaper bus fares?

Tony McNulty: I will be more than happy to congratulate the assembly, not least because that is precisely what we are trying to do by reviewing the entire administration and bureaucracy of concessionary schemes. It must be right that pensioners throughout a region such as Yorkshire know what is available, and not just in their district.

School Buses

Ben Chapman: What plans he has to encourage the introduction of yellow school buses.

David Jamieson: Both the Department for Transport and the Department for Education and Skills recognise that well-designed, dedicated bus schemes can reduce car dependency for the journey to school. The Department for Transport is providing £18.7 million to support a large-scale pilot in West Yorkshire and, subject to affordability, will consider further proposals submitted through the local transport plan process.

Ben Chapman: Given that yellow school buses have the potential to remove congestion, eliminate the school run, improve air quality and the environment, allow local authorities to rationalise their transport arrangements and provide a safer and more disciplined way to get kids to school, ought we not to do more? Can I expect to hear more on the subject of school buses later today?

David Jamieson: On the latter point, my hon. Friend will have to wait a few more minutes, and perhaps he will hear something on that. He is absolutely correct: getting children on to buses and out of the car is very important in reducing congestion and improving air quality outside schools. We must be careful, however, to ensure that encouraging the use of buses does not divert children from walking and cycling to school, which are better for their health. He will probably be aware that in September last year we published the "Travelling to School" action plan and good practice guide. We have also provided £7.5 million to local authorities for school travel advisers, all of which will help improve the journey to school, and particularly the take-up of school buses.

Foreign-registered Vehicles

Andrew Robathan: Pursuant to the answer of 1 July 2004, Official Report, column 368W on Irish-registered vehicles, if he will make it his policy to collate separate statistics for foreign-registered vehicles not displaying current road tax.

David Jamieson: We recognise the problem of illegal use of foreign vehicles on British roads and are determined to take the necessary steps to control it.I have asked the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency to work with the police and other enforcement agencies on the question of how best to take action against unlicensed foreign vehicles. As part of the process, they will collect statistics on the numbers involved.

Andrew Robathan: I am glad to hear that, but in the interests of joined-up government will the Minister speak to his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, who has recently been making some rather unconvincing statements about antisocial behaviour and being tough on crime? Is he aware that up and down the country, in Leicestershire and, I suspect, in Devon, so-called Travellers are bringing a great deal of misery to people through antisocial behaviour and often criminal activity? They use Irish-registered vehicles with no road tax, and the police say that they can do nothing.
	I note from the Minister's reply that this could be covered by the Vehicle Excise and Registration Act 1994. Will he and the Home Secretary please direct chief constables to prosecute Irish-registered vehicles without road tax and force the so-called Travellers to pay their taxes just as law-abiding citizens must?

David Jamieson: The Home Office has not kept records of prosecutions in such instances, but I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the DVLA will now keep such records.
	For the first six months in this country, vehicles from the Republic of Ireland and other European Union countries must meet the requirements of their home state. Subsequently, they must meet this country's requirements: they must have British licence plates and they must have paid vehicle excise duty. I have asked the DVLA to ensure that vehicles reported to it, or seen in checks, that do not have the appropriate tax discs are clamped—and I believe that in some cases there are powers for them to be confiscated.
	The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. These vehicles are a potential nuisance on the road and, more important, they are a potential danger on the road.

Road Programme

Stephen Hepburn: If he will make a statement on his future road programme.

David Jamieson: The Highways Agency is currently proceeding with a programme of 81 major trunk road schemes. Further schemes are being prepared for entry to the programme and will be considered in the light of our priorities and available resources. Our transport strategy document, published today, provides further details of our plans for the road network.

Stephen Hepburn: Can the Minister name two other neighbouring cities the size of Newcastle and Edinburgh that are not linked by a dual carriageway in this country, let alone Europe? The Government are a laughing stock in the north-east because of this. Can we expect some good news in the document that is being published today?

David Jamieson: As my hon. Friend probably knows, I visited the A1 a couple of weeks ago to have a look at the road myself. We have invested, or will invest in the coming years, nearly £100 million. The multi-modal study, which was intended to establish local views, showed no support for full dualling from Newcastle to the Scottish border. However, the improvements from Morpeth to Felton mean that there will be dual carriageway or motorway all the way from Alnwick to London. Although I cannot promise dualling throughout, I can tell my hon. Friend that past and future improvements constitute a major investment in the road.

Gregory Barker: What on earth is going on with the A21 at Hurst Green? The Minister has now broken his third self-imposed deadline for coming up with his preferred scheme. In a letter to me on 15 July, he said that he was aiming to present his proposals by the autumn, but on 19 July he wrote that he was aiming to make an announcement later in the summer. Is it any wonder that people are losing all confidence in the Government's handling of this proposal, given that hundreds of homes have been blighted by Labour's indecision and stalling?

David Jamieson: Oh dear, that really was not very good at all. The hon. Gentleman came to see me about the road, and I thought that we had had a perfectly sensible discussion about the improvements that we are making to it, the importance of which we do recognise. He should tell his constituents about the policy of his Front-Bench colleagues, which is to cut the roads programme. Under it, there would be no improvements at all, either this year or next.

Bill O'Brien: When considering future roads programmes, will my hon. Friend impress on the Highways Agency the need to reduce noise from motorways through resurfacing and noise barriers, so that the people who live near them can have some quality of life? Will he further ensure that the Highways Agency implements such measures, particularly noise barriers?

David Jamieson: My hon. Friend is absolutely right: intrusive noise from motorways is very disturbing for people who live close to them. All new or resurfaced roads now have quieter surfaces, and it is this Government who have set aside dedicated ring-fenced funds for resurfacing some of the concrete roads that, although of very good quality, tend to be much noisier than black-top roads. The Highways Agency has the issue very much in mind. I can assure my hon. Friend that the roads will be resurfaced over time and that, once they are, they will be quieter than they were, say, 10 years ago.

Christopher Chope: All this is mere words. Every day, the Government are fleecing motorists through £120 million in motoring taxes, yet they reinvest just £2 million in new roads every day. That is what this Government must be held accountable for, and we need a better deal for the motoring public.

David Jamieson: I am very interested to hear that this Chamber is about words—that will come as a total surprise to everybody here. We are improving junctions, widening roads and making various improvements throughout the country. Such improvements are significant and they represent the very substantial investment that this Government are making in our roads system. Will the hon. Gentleman go back to his constituents in Christchurch and peddle the line taken by the shadow Chancellor—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I call Mr. Ivan Henderson.

Ivan Henderson: My hon. Friend will be aware that although the London to Ipswich multi-modal study recommended dualling of the A120 from Harwich to Hare Green, it has not been made a priority. If there is a major change in circumstances and the planned port development of Bathside bay goes ahead—a public inquiry into that development is under way, but I do not expect my hon. Friend to comment on it—will he review the situation and introduce road dualling, if necessary?

David Jamieson: Yes, and I know that my hon. Friend has made regular representations about this road. Of course, if circumstances changed and major developments occurred in any part of the country in respect of a road serving a port or any other facility, we would re-examine the priority of the scheme in question.

M6 Toll Road

Nicholas Winterton: If he will assess the effects on Cheshire of the proposed M6 toll road; and if he will make a statement.

David Jamieson: The consultation document "M6: giving motorists a choice" seeks views at this stage on the broad concept of a tolled expressway alongside the existing M6. The document makes it clear that before decisions are taken, a careful assessment will be made of the wider social, economic and environmental impacts of any potential scheme, including the section of the route running through Cheshire.

Nicholas Winterton: I am very grateful to the Minister for that helpful reply, which will reassure the people of Cheshire. He will know that the north Birmingham relief motorway has been a great success because of the care that went into its design and the chosen line of route. Will he assure me and the people of Cheshire that, if this new road proceeds, the same care will be shown with the line of route, and that environmentally sensitive areas and the environment as a whole will be taken into account? I hope that it does proceed, because we need this express motorway. I support the toll road concept.

David Jamieson: The hon. Gentleman mentions the success of the M6 toll scheme. For all the other projects undertaken by the Highways Agency, too, a very careful assessment of the environmental impact is undertaken. The M6 toll has been a success: the original M6 is much quieter than it was before. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that standards are improving all the time. When we undertake consultation on the road that he mentioned, the impact on the environment and on people will be foremost in our minds.

CABINET OFFICE

The Minister was asked—

Strategy Unit

Bob Spink: If he will list the current work programme of the strategy unit.

Douglas Alexander: The strategy unit is currently working on six full projects, as well as working across government to improve strategic capability and providing leadership for Government social research. The six current strategy unit projects are: countries at risk of instability; deprived areas; improving the life chances of disabled people; legal aid; London; and police reform.

Bob Spink: May I make a constructive suggestion on police reform? The police need IT solutions to help them to become more efficient—for instance, to cut the time it takes them to arrest a prisoner. Will the Minister bring forward the development of such IT solutions, which could release up to 25 per cent. of a police officer's time, as 25 per cent. more police officers on the street is what people really want to see?

Douglas Alexander: I am sure that people will therefore welcome the Home Secretary's announcement this week of additional resources for community support officers. As I said in my initial answer, the strategy unit is undertaking a project on police reform under the Minister for Crime Reduction, Policing and Community Safety, the sponsor Minister. I am certainly happy to pass the hon. Gentleman's comments directly to her.

Tony Wright: Will the Minister take the opportunity to pay tribute to Mr. Geoff Mulgan, who has been head of the strategy unit for some time and is now retiring? He has one of the most fertile minds in the country and we were fortunate to bring him into government as a special adviser and then as a civil servant. When such people leave, we should say "thank you" to them.

Douglas Alexander: That is indeed a happy task and I shall certainly pass on to Mr. Mulgan not only my best wishes, but those of my hon. Friend.

Oliver Heald: The strategy unit costs more than £5 million a year, but it has released just four final project reports since last July: each report has cost more than £1 million. How does that square with the Chancellor's new talk of efficiency, and where is the value for taxpayers' money in that?

Douglas Alexander: I will certainly take no lectures from the Opposition on efficiency, not least from the party that introduced the poll tax and gave us black Wednesday. On the substantive point of the strategy unit, many constituents in many parts of the country would welcome, for example, the creation of the Assets Recovery Agency, which already is doing tremendous work in ensuring that the assets of drug dealers are brought into the criminal justice system. The strategy unit's work on child care provision in this country has been pioneering. In that sense, I believe that we get extremely good value from an innovative centre of government.

E-government

Terry Rooney: If he will make a statement on the recent appointment of the head of e-government.

Douglas Alexander: On 25   May 2004, the Prime Minister announced the appointment of Ian Watmore as the new head of e-government. He was recruited through open competition in accordance with the civil service commissioner's recruitment code. Mr. Watmore takes up his post in September 2004.

Terry Rooney: I thank the Minister for his reply. Does Mr. Watmore's experience at Accenture impinge on the duties that he can perform, and what will he bring for the constituents of Bradford?

Douglas Alexander: I am glad to say that Mr. Watmore's appointment has been very well received—not just within the supplier community, but in the trade press. People recognise that having a big hitter coming into government is further evidence of the seriousness with which the Government take this area of work. A protocol has been established and agreed, which means that he will not be involved in business decisions concerning Accenture, his previous employer. I believe that constituents in every part of the country will welcome the rigorous focus on project management that he will bring to a huge programme of work centred on securing value for money in our e-services.

Richard Allan: The Minister will know that one of the biggest e-government projects over the next few years is likely to be the IT programme for the NHS. What role, if any, will the head of e-government have in that respect?

Douglas Alexander: That is a huge project for NHS procurement. A specialist team in the Department of Health works under Richard Grainger. He previously worked closely with Ian Watmore, and I am sure that he is looking forward to working again with the new head of e-government. We are determined to make sure that we have a centre of excellence for e-government at the heart of Government, and that we draw on the expertise in Departments. The evidence is that the NHS project is on track, and that tremendous work is being done.

Better Regulation Agenda

David Taylor: What civil service resources he estimates will be needed to advance the Government's better regulation agenda in the next two years.

Douglas Alexander: All Government Departments have a role to play in taking forward the Government's better regulation agenda. Allocation of specific resources to this agenda is the responsibility of individual Departments.

David Taylor: Last week's comprehensive spending review proposed to cut 150 jobs in the Cabinet Office, including in the regulatory impact unit. Does the Minister believe that such cuts might curtail his Department's consultancy capacity in crucial areas such as employee relations and communications? That is especially important, given that the recent performance of Departments and agencies for which his ministerial colleagues have responsibility—such as the Department for Work and Pensions and the Office for National Statistics—has been so woeful in that respect.

Douglas Alexander: In the year to April 2004, the number of people on the Cabinet Office payroll fell rather than rose. As I indicated in my earlier answer, strong evidence is emerging that the scale of our investment in new technology and IT in particular means that there is scope for exactly the sort of efficiencies set out by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor in the comprehensive spending review.

Archie Norman: If the Minister is sincere about the better regulation agenda, why does he not look at the problem of regulatory impact assessments? Even he would acknowledge that they are often published far too late, and that hindsight often proves them to be wildly inaccurate. Is not there a compelling case for looking again at a system that allows officials to assess their own legislation without having to publish any details of their calculations? As a result of that, the regulatory impact assessments carry scant credibility, in the House or outside it.

Douglas Alexander: I simply disagree with that assessment of the importance of regulatory impact assessments across government. The fact that they are valuable tools, informing policy makers in the process of formulating policy, is evidenced by the fact that the EU is looking at the RIA process as one that might meet some of its own specific challenges. However, I draw attention to the work being done by the National Audit Office, whose report noted that sanctions are available to the Better Regulation Task Force. It is clear also, from the recent comments made by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that RIAs remain an important part of our ongoing work to ensure better regulation across government.

Government Websites

Anthony D Wright: What steps are being taken to ensure that Government websites are designed around the needs of the general public.

Douglas Alexander: Designing services around customer needs has always been at the heart of the Government drive to put services online. The e-government unit has recently launched Directgov, and is assisting Departments with service design and delivery standards to meet these aims. Directgov was designed around the needs of the user by bringing together information, from across many Departments, in a way that makes it easy for people to find what they want online.

Anthony D Wright: In my constituency of Great Yarmouth, two online learning centres, one of which is mobile, have given 5,000 of my constituents access to online services. However, many people needing information from Government sites still cannot get access to computers. Will my hon. Friend say whether there will be more investment in online sites for people in deprived communities such as Great Yarmouth, so that they can gain access to the information that the Government are making available?

Douglas Alexander: There are seven UK online centres in Great Yarmouth, and a further 20 such centres in a 15-mile radius. To give the House a sense of the scale of the investment that we have made, I can say that £396 million has been invested in networks of the 6,000 UK online centres across the country. In addition, many households now have direct access to online services. Our key challenge is not simply to ensure that access exists, but that all sections of society have the opportunity to use the new technology and are encouraged to do so. We set up the "Get Started" initiative last year to make sure that people who previously had been denied such opportunities, such as older people, were able to use the new online centres.

Online Government Services

Colin Challen: What progress is being made against the target to put all Government services online.

Douglas Alexander: Current figures show that 74 per cent. of Government services are already online, and Departments continue to work towards the target of 100 per cent. availability by 2005.

Colin Challen: That reply shows the marvellous progress that has been made in getting Government services online. However, some people will always be excluded from using the internet, and pensioners are probably the largest group in that category. They might benefit a great deal if the internet were rolled out to post offices. They could access services, print forms and perhaps get advice from a sub-postmaster or mistress on how to complete them.

Douglas Alexander: I am aware that in the past there have been numerous discussions with Post Office management about the availability of an electronic platform. The initiatives that the Post Office has taken in banking in recent years are evidence of the fact that they can embrace new services. However, as I said earlier, with 6,000 UK online centres across the country, there are now plenty of opportunities to gain access to the internet. The real challenge is to ensure that people have the skills and aptitude to use it effectively, and that work continues.

Speaker's Statement

Mr. Speaker: I have to advise the House that I have received the following letter from Sir Michael Cummins, our Serjeant at Arms:
	"I write to request your agreement to my retirement on 31 December of this year, by which time I shall be sixty-five.
	It has been a great privilege to serve you and the House as Serjeant at Arms in recent years. I wish to thank you personally for your support and advice during that time, and to acknowledge the large debt of gratitude I owe to my colleagues and staff, whose support and friendship over the past twenty-three years have been invaluable."
	There will be an occasion to pay formal tributes to Sir Michael in due course.
	I can also advise the House that Her Majesty the Queen has approved the appointment of Major General Anthony Peter Grant Peterkin, CB, OBE to succeed Sir Michael.

Transport Strategy

Alistair Darling: With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement about transport strategy. Today, I am publishing a White Paper that looks at the factors that will shape travel, and therefore transport networks, over the next 30 years. The White Paper sets out what we need to do as a country to enable people and goods to move around in ways that are consistent with our environmental objectives. So I want to set out the context in which we plan, and the three things we need to do in response.
	First, we need to invest in increased capacity for road, rail and other public transport. Secondly, we need measures to make better use of the capacity we have already got, and thirdly, we need to face up to difficult decisions in order to plan ahead to meet the pressures we know that we will face in the future. Let me set out the context against which we plan.
	Looking ahead, the challenges we face are clear. By 2025, the population is expected to increase by 4.5   million people to 64 million. As the economy continues to grow, and with increased prosperity, we will want to travel more and the demand for goods from all over the world will grow. More than that, people are travelling longer distances—for example, whereas in the past people tended to move home when they changed job, increasingly people choose to stay in the same place rather than move nearer to their work. More people are travelling by air, travel by train has increased by 25 per cent. in the last few years, and the huge increase in car ownership is putting growing pressures on our roads.
	Our job is to help people travel, not to stop them. The challenge for us is how we meet people's need and wish to do so while meeting our environmental aims. So that is the context in which we take investment decisions. Let me now set out our investment plans for the future. Last week's spending review confirms our commitment to sustained high levels of investment in transport. It raises planned spending over the next three years from £10.4 billion this year to more than £12.8 billion by 2007. That is 60 per cent. more in real terms than in 1997. Spending will be higher than the investment plans we set out four years ago. By 2010, we will be spending £1.2 billion more per year than the 10-year plan envisaged. As we promised, the White Paper today sets out planned spending showing that the high level of spending will continue to grow by 2.25 per cent. in real terms through to 2015.
	These spending plans allow us to set up a new transport fund, which will be used to plan ahead for change and innovation and to support and encourage local and regional transport strategies to tackle congestion in towns and cities. It will also ensure that the contribution that regional and local schemes can make to our national productivity is reflected in their funding. Details will be announced with next year's Budget.
	Major investment in road and rail is already under way, and it will continue. Spending will rise to build the transport network we need; but cost control is absolutely essential. Railway costs in particular have increased dramatically, so that even with Network Rail's intended efficiency measures, amounting to £1.5 billion a year, the rail regulator's findings last year were that the railways require an additional £7 billion—putting huge pressures on my Department's budget. But if we are to provide the transport for passengers and freight that we need, rigorous control is essential on road, rail and light rail.
	Light rail can be very effective in persuading people to use public transport. Since 2000, new lines have opened in Croydon, Tyne and Wear, Manchester and Nottingham. Manchester's metro has been extremely successful, but plans for the extension have been dogged by successive cost increases. The central Government capital contribution rose from £282 million cash in 2000 to £520 million cash in 2002, on top of which the required annual central Government payments have also risen, from £5 million a year in 2000 to £17 million a year today—worth another £150 million.
	There is a similar pattern in the Leeds and south Hampshire tram proposals. In Leeds, the present value of the public sector contribution was capped at £355 million, but is now estimated at £500 million, and in south Hampshire, the original £170 million present value is now £100 million more. In each case there is no certainty that costs will not rise further. The National Audit Office was right to raise concerns; indeed, looking back over the past 20 years, it has cost more to provide light rail in this country than elsewhere in Europe.
	No Government could accept those schemes as they are on the basis of such cost escalations. We cannot, therefore, approve them. We need instead to look urgently at how light rail could be made affordable, including the best approach for procurement. We will work with local authorities on the development of   schemes, building on the recent NAO recommendations.
	The same considerations apply to Crossrail; cost control will be essential. The case for a Crossrail link across London is clear and will only get stronger as London continues to grow, but the plans need to be robust and value for money. That is why last year I asked a team led by Adrian Montague to review the business case for Crossrail. His report, which I am publishing today, makes it clear Crossrail is needed, but that at a cost of £10 billion it represents a huge challenge both to deliver and to fund.
	We intend to introduce a hybrid Bill at the earliest opportunity to take the powers necessary for Crossrail to be built. At the same time, as the Montague report recognises, a major funding challenge remains. The Government will need to work with the Mayor and the London business community to find a funding solution where everyone pays their fair share. That will include consulting on appropriate alternative funding mechanisms. Copies of the report and my detailed response are available in the Library.
	We believe that local decisions are best taken locally, and we intend to give local and regional authorities a greater role in deciding transport priorities in their areas, looking across the whole transport network. To achieve that, we will set regional guideline budgets for major schemes next year, and set out guideline capital allocations to councils in the autumn.
	However, because of the timing of the Olympic bid, I am today announcing the equivalent settlement for London. Transport will be crucial to a successful British bid for the 2012 Olympics. The Mayor guarantees to fund and provide a package of transport improvements that will underpin the bid and provide lasting benefits for London. Details will be available in due course, but I can announce that it will be supported by additional Government funding of £340 million, above existing plans, and Transport for London's prudential borrowing plans of a further £2.9 billion for the period up to 2009–10, which the Government support.
	Turning to the second part of our strategy, increased investment needs to go hand in hand with measures to get more from our existing capacity. That is why, for example, we introduced the Traffic Management Bill to keep traffic flowing in towns and cities. Starting in the west midlands, traffic officers are now patrolling the motorway; their aim is to keep traffic moving. We are also considering carpool lanes. The reforms for the railways that I announced last week will result in better management and increased reliability for rail.
	The White Paper sets out the measures that we are implementing, including new proposals to help manage bus services, because we need to make more effective use of buses to improve local transport in towns, cities and rural areas across the country. The vast majority of travel by public transport is by bus. Nearly two thirds of all public transport journeys—about 4 billion journeys last year—are by bus, and many people depend on it. As I have said before, where councils and bus operators work together in partnership, bus use increases, and we want to see more of that.
	As I told the House last week, we intend to devolve significant powers and funding for rail to passenger transport authorities, but if we are to enable PTAs to make sensible decisions between rail, light rail and bus services, they will need to have the power to guarantee bus routes, timings and fares. That is why I can tell the House that we will make it more attractive for authorities to introduce bus franchising through quality contracts in specified circumstances, approved by the Secretary of State—for example, as part of a congestion charging scheme, or where authorities decide on a new balance between rail and bus. As part of that, we will streamline the statutory procedure for quality contracts, reducing the minimum period to implement a scheme from 21 months to six months. One advantage of our proposals to give local authorities the ability to take decisions about public transport in the round is that it will reduce some of the revenue risk on light rail schemes.
	I now turn to the third part of the strategy. We also have to plan ahead for the pressures that we know that we will face in decades to come. I confirm our commitment to implement the conclusions of the air transport White Paper. We also intend to take a long-term approach to port development and will publish a review of the policy framework for ports by the end of next year. The White Paper also sets out a sustainable approach to freight.
	We also need to deal with the potential environmental consequences of increased travel. Substantial progress has been made. Cars and lorries are becoming cleaner and quieter, so despite increasing car use over the past decade, air pollution from road transport has halved. But the White Paper looks at how we can ensure that transport makes its proper contribution to reducing CO2 emissions to achieve the Government's climate change commitments, by supporting the development of low-carbon vehicles and fuels, including hydrogen fuel, and continuing to ensure that the right tax incentives are in place to encourage the take-up of new technology and fuels.
	That brings me to what is perhaps the biggest challenge for all of us: car use has increased and is likely to increase more, which has huge environmental and social consequences. As a country, we have to face up to some stark choices. Looking ahead over the next 20 or 30 years, we cannot try to build our way out of the problem—the cost, environmentally and financially, is unacceptable—nor can we accept eventual gridlock, which is the inevitable consequence of doing nothing. Therefore, we have to examine whether we can make use of new technology, as it becomes available, to make more efficient use of our roads.
	As the House will be aware, in the next four years, we will introduce charging for all lorries using UK roads based on the distance that they travel. Accompanied by a reduction in fuel duty, overall, the UK haulage industry will not pay more. That will allow us in the future—for example, by varying charges—to encourage lorries to use motorways at off-peak times.
	Last year, I set up a study, involving a broad range of motoring and environmental interests, to look at the feasibility of introducing road pricing for cars. That would involve moving away from the current motoring taxation system and introducing charges to use roads. Those charges would vary depending on how congested the roads are. Today, I am publishing the findings of that study, and copies are available in the Library. The study concludes that a national scheme has the potential to cut congestion by about a half, as well as providing environmental benefits. It says that road pricing will become technically feasible in the next 10 to 15 years; but, for a scheme to work, it would need general public acceptance and a great deal of preparation work over a number of years. There is still a lot of work to be done before we could be sure whether that could work, but one thing is clear: doing nothing would be the worst possible option.
	Of course, we need to invest in public transport, and we are, but that will not be enough on its own. But if we are not bold now, we will be left behind when the benefits become possible. That is why I welcome the report. There needs to be debate about what would make pricing acceptable to motorists. We must build a public consensus around the objectives of road pricing and how to use the revenues. Although a national scheme is not yet feasible, undertaking road pricing at a local level could be feasible now, and the study says that that would greatly improve the understanding of the benefits, so we will need to look at that further with local authorities and take steps towards setting international standards for the equipment.
	To duck this challenge now—to refuse to engage in the debate or to look at what new technology may make possible—would be irresponsible and condemn future generations to endless delays and increasing environmental damage. We need to rise to the challenge and to have the courage to look ahead and plan for the future, because our future prosperity and well-being depend on it.
	There are no quick fixes for Britain's transport challenges. The long-term solution requires investment and a willingness to face up to difficult decisions. That is why we are making sustained high levels of investment and planning ahead to meet the needs of generations to come. I commend this statement to the House.

Tim Yeo: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for a copy of the White Paper and of the statement, which he made available earlier this morning. I welcome his recognition that a growing economy means that people want to travel more and that measures to enable people and goods to move around must be consistent with our environmental objectives. I particularly welcome the reference in the White Paper to the use of new technology to promote cleaner vehicles and fuels. We will want to examine that matter and in due course to debate it.
	However, after seven years of Labour Government, motorists and train users do not have much to be grateful about. On the roads, congestion has got worse, even though motorists are paying an extra £10 billion a year in taxes compared with 1997. As the RAC points out, out of a total of £40 billion raised every year in motoring taxes, only about £6 billion is spent on the roads. On the railways, reliability has got worse and fares have risen faster than inflation. The 10-year transport plan, launched with such a fanfare four years ago by the Deputy Prime Minister, has been a disastrous failure.
	Let us judge the Government's performance by their own standards and look at some of the key targets that they set out in the 10-year plan. According to the plan, by 2010 congestion on our roads was to be reduced. In practice, it has got worse. According to the plan, trains were to be made more punctual. In practice, they have become less punctual. According to the plan, rail passengers were to increase by 50 per cent. That target cannot now be met. According to the plan, bus travel throughout England was to grow by 10 per cent. In practice, outside London, it is static. According to the Secretary of State's own update of the plan just two years ago, the Strategic Rail Authority was to provide firm leadership, strategic direction and funding for the rail industry. In practice, it has been abolished.
	According to the plan, the maintenance backlog on local roads was to be eliminated. [Interruption.] In practice, that target is being dropped. According to the plan, Thameslink and the East London line were to be built by 2010. In practice, those target dates cannot possibly be met. According to the plan, rail freight was to increase by 80 per cent. In practice, in 2002 rail freight fell. [Hon. Members: "Boring."] According to the plan, passengers were to travel by train more quickly and comfortably. In practice, overcrowding is bad, it has reached chronic proportions and it is likely to get worse. Not surprisingly, complaints have more than doubled.
	According to the plan, the east coast main line was to be modernised and capacity was to be increased. In practice, that scheme has been put on ice. According to the plan, local roads were to be improved. In practice, the Freight Transport Association reports that their condition is worse than a decade ago. [Interruption.]
	Not one of those failures received a mention from the Secretary of State but they are the issues that concern daily road users, railway users and freight customers. [Interruption.] The consequence of those failures, to which he is so reluctant to own up, is an economy whose competitiveness is weakened every day. According to the CBI, transport congestion now costs British industry more than £15 billion a year. [Interruption.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the shadow Secretary of State but may I say that he should be given the same attention as the Secretary of State and should be heard?

Tim Yeo: I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The truth is that neither the Secretary of State nor Labour Back Benchers want to hear the truth about Labour's failures on transport.
	Britain has less than half the European Union average provision of motorways per head of population and a lower motorway density than any of our major European competitors. In Britain, the proportion of road links that are congested for more than one hour a day is three times greater than in Germany and five times greater than in France.
	Absolutely nothing in the statement suggests that the Government plan any specific new steps beyond what they have already announced to tackle any of the problems that I have mentioned. Their failure to do so is rapidly turning the challenge to which the Secretary of State referred into a full-scale crisis. The truth is that motorists who face jams today will face them tomorrow and for the foreseeable future, even if, unlike all those previous promises, the promises in the White Paper are kept.
	Why do not the Government recognise that charging for road use is acceptable, but only if the money raised is used exclusively to pay for environmentally acceptable road improvements or increases in capacity, or to cut other motoring taxes? [Interruption.] Simply extracting more tax from drivers without any guarantee that those conditions will be met would be wrong.

George Foulkes: Where is the question?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I say once to the right hon. Gentleman that I expect him now to maintain silence from a sedentary position. He cannot go on interrupting the hon. Gentleman; otherwise, we shall be better off without his presence.

Tim Yeo: Even if the right hon. Gentleman does not intervene, we will be better off without his presence.
	The timid nature of the Government's approach—launching a debate instead of taking a decision—will dismay road users and environmentalists alike. On local congestion schemes, do the Government realise that improvements in public transport should precede and not follow the introduction of local road pricing? What assurance can the Secretary of State give about the use to which money that may be raised by local councils through local congestion charging schemes will be put?
	On spending, to which the Secretary of State is so addicted, does he realise that much of the investment that is needed to improve our transport system will come from the private sector, regardless of who is in power? Therefore, one key judgment on his White Paper is whether it promotes private investment. Will he say whether giving Ken Livingstone power over train services in London—two out of three rail journeys begin or end in London—will make it more or less likely that private investors will want to invest in the railway industry?
	How will the new transport fund that the Secretary of State mentioned reduce congestion in towns and cities? Will it deal with the problem of road maintenance, a huge issue that I did not hear him mention at all? Will he admit that delaying repairs and maintenance on roads increases the need for complete rebuilding of many roads? When does he believe that the backlog of maintenance work will be addressed?
	On Crossrail, will the Secretary of State confirm that after today, we are no nearer a firm date for completion of this project and that suggestions that it would be completed in time for the London Olympic games in 2012 are complete nonsense? Will he confirm that his failure to introduce the lorry road user charge means that Britain's hauliers will remain at a competitive disadvantage in relation to their foreign counterparts for several more years?
	Given the fact that almost every promise made in the document published four years ago has now been broken and that almost every target has been missed, there can be little confidence that a fresh set of promises in this new document will be kept. Instead of a vision for our transport system, we are offered a muddle. Instead of decisions, we are offered debates. After seven years of Labour government, Britain has a transport system that inconveniences millions of travellers every day and burdens businesses with delays and costs that undermine our competitive position. Sadly, after today's statement, that inconvenience and those delays and costs are set to continue for years to come. Only the election of a Conservative Government will address our transport needs.

Alistair Darling: Well, I admire the hon. Gentleman's sense of humour, at least in relation to the last point. I am glad that he recognises the overall objectives and agrees with them; it is just a shame that where we differ to a great extent is on providing the means to achieve them. If one is committed, as he is, to cutting £2 billion from transport, many of the problems that he complains about will be compounded, not sorted out.
	Let me go through the points that the hon. Gentleman raised. He complained that we were not spending enough on roads. He will recall that, in the early 1990s, the then Conservative Government, of whom he was a member, announced a very ambitious road programme. The only problem was that it completely collapsed by 1996, because of the economic problems that they ran into. We are spending 43 per cent. more on roads than in 1997, and the road programme that we have put in place will make a difference.
	The hon. Gentleman mentioned railways. He well knows that one of the biggest impediments to rail reliability was the lack of investment. Again, investment virtually dried up prior to privatisation. Less than 200 miles of track was being maintained thanks to the then Conservative Government. Privatisation also created a chaotic system of organisation that affected reliability. Both those things, investment and organisation, are being put right.
	The hon. Gentleman had the gall to say that fares were going up. Is that another spending commitment? If fares are going to come down, the money has to be found somewhere. It is awfully difficult to see how it can be found if one is cutting £2 billion from transport spending.
	As for this nonsense about private investment and the Mayor, the Mayor is getting very limited influence over what is happening in London, which is mainly directed towards rationalising the fare structure. From the conversations that I have had with the rail companies, which I speak to regularly, I can tell the hon. Gentleman that they were very happy with what I announced last week and saw that it was far more sensible than what the Conservatives had left.
	The hon. Gentleman mentioned bus travel, which is increasing outside London, where, as I told the House earlier, good councils and bus companies are working together. The proposals that I have announced today—I suspect that Labour Members will want to draw me out on them rather more than Opposition Members do—with regard to limited franchising are a welcome reform and a good step forward.
	Crossrail was never going to be ready for the Olympics. I have said that countless times in the House.

Tim Yeo: That is in The Times.

Alistair Darling: I cannot be responsible for what The Times writes. God almighty.
	Crossrail is another major step forward in providing a much-needed bit of infrastructure, but let us be fair: it is again something that successive Governments did not provide.
	The hon. Gentleman went on about Thameslink, the East London line and the east coast main line. These are all things for which we are providing money, but from which he would take money away, because of his commitment. The settlement that I have announced for London today will allow the Mayor to make major progress on a number of these things.
	The hon. Gentleman mentioned motorways. I have already announced the widening of the M1 and M25, and I recently announced proposals for the M6. Finally, he went on about road user charging. Here, there was just a glimmer of hope. The lorry road user charging scheme is due to be introduced in four years' time, and it will be. On the further proposals for cars, I welcome what he said on Sunday. He was asked about the issue twice by Mr. Boulton on a Sky programme, and he said about congestion charging and road pricing:
	"There is nothing wrong in principle with a system of road pricing".
	He went on to say:
	"in principle a system of road pricing which reflected the usage of particular roads is acceptable."
	So we are agreed on that.

Tim Yeo: It is a debate.

Alistair Darling: Like his leader, the hon. Gentleman is rowing back on what he said only a few months ago. He has a real problem. He has no aviation policy, no roads policy and no rail policy. All he has got is a commitment to cut £2 billion of spending.

John Thurso: May I thank the Secretary of State for sending an advance copy of the statement and also giving me the White Paper and reports?
	Obviously, I have not had a chance to read the White Paper in detail, but I was drawn to the map on page 25, which deals with major airports and ports of the United Kingdom. Across the south of England and up into the midlands, there are lots of little aeroplanes denoting important airports. When one comes to the north of Scotland, however, there is no little aeroplane over Kirkwall or Wick, and even more importantly, there is none over Inverness. Is that an omission on the part of the Government, or do they seriously believe that Inverness is not a major airport?
	The statement is something of a curate's egg; there are good bits and bad bits. It raises many issues and puts many of the right questions, but it is somewhat lighter on the answers. Perhaps one of the most obvious omissions is the lack of reference to an integrated transport policy. That is all the more surprising as research has revealed that the words "integrated transport policy" were first used in a Labour policy document in 1948. One therefore might have hoped to see the phrase in this important White Paper.
	In addition to the White Paper, the Secretary of State has published today a report on Crossrail, which is welcome, and a report on road user charging, which is also welcome. It will be necessary to study those carefully to determine whether the detail in them provides more answers. Overall, they represent a road map to a strategy rather than a strategy document. Among the omissions in the documents is the absence of a serious analysis of the factors that shape travel—the White Paper does not consider that. Growth in the past has not been driven simply by growth in the economy, so we need to consider that matter. The Secretary of State is right to put the planning time frame at 30 years. Transport planning has been bedevilled by short-term outlooks, so until we have a clear long-term vision, it will be impossible to put forward a good short-term plan.
	Perhaps the most important announcement that the Secretary of State made was on his decision to consider national road user charging, which I would support. He said in his statement that a national scheme could not be put into effect at this time, but is he aware that passive reading technologies, such as cell ID and triangulation, that use mobile operator black boxes, could provide a solution within a much shorter time frame? The Secretary of State also mentioned reducing fuel duty, with which I agree, but will he consider abolishing vehicle excise duty as part of the exercise, because it is a regressive tax that is costly to collect. Will he confirm that the overall tax take from the introduction of road user charging will remain the same, although the tax burden will fall differently on different users?
	I was pleased to note that the Secretary of State accepted the need to adopt a long-term approach to port development—although I must say that Scrabster, Britain's most northerly deep-water port, was another omission from the map of major ports. Our ports are underused assets, especially for short sea freight, and the lack of capacity for long-haul container traffic must be addressed. As I have said on several occasions, the Government need to take a lead on that.
	The Secretary of State has laid before the House the stark challenge and conflicting demands that exist due to more transport requirements and the equal requirement for less emissions—I suppose that he deserves one cheer for that, at least. We will find out whether the White Paper meets that challenge in the years to come, but one thing is certain: we must meet the challenge of halting and reversing our emissions growth. That alone will be the measure by which the statement will be judged.

Alistair Darling: The map is intended to show major airports. I appreciate that Inverness is not on it, although it is a busy airport; a further glaring omission is Stornoway, which is a pity because I was hoping to fly into it next month—I shall have it reinstated at the earliest possible opportunity. I have been to Scrabster; although I appreciate its importance, it is not quite like Southampton or several of the London docks. However, I take the point that the hon. Gentleman makes.
	The words "integrated transport" are used endlessly, but what matters is to enable the people who can make transport work do so more properly—a lot of responsibilities are devolved to local authorities and regions—which is what we are doing. I appreciate that the document on road user travel charging is large and that the hon. Gentleman received it at only 10 o'clock this morning, but when he reads it, he will see that the experts' view is that the scheme is technically 10 to 15 years away. He is right about moving away from the present taxation system towards something completely different. That will be new territory. We will be trailblazing in that respect, but I appreciate his general welcome to the fact that we are examining such measures.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. There is considerable interest in this statement, the next statement and the main debate to follow. I do not believe that I will be able to call everybody, and I would appreciate short questions and answers.

Gwyneth Dunwoody: The Secretary of State will be aware that his statement is warmly received because of its clarity and commitment, especially regarding the aspects on bus policy, which will mean that local authorities will be able to guarantee that buses are where they are wanted and needed in the future. Will he use some of his new funds to examine ways to reinvigorate the manufacturing industry for both rail and light rail in this country? That is what we should be doing, so will he give us some hope that he will look at it?

Alistair Darling: The funds will be applied for specific purposes to get traffic improvement. That might have a consequential effect on orders for buses or light rail, although of course there would not be direct payments to manufacturers. On my hon. Friend's general point, the bus franchising proposals that I am outlining are to be used in specific circumstances. I suspect that the majority of schemes will continue under the present system for some time, but I welcome her general comments.

Mark Field: On the Crossrail project, the Secretary of State makes it clear that he wants all partners to pay what he describes as a "fair share" of the expense. Can he give us an indication of what the Government's fair share of the project will be?

Alistair Darling: As I said, we will have to discuss how much central Government, London, the Mayor and businesses contribute. I think that there is an appetite among businesses to contribute to something from which they would hugely benefit, but such discussions must continue.

Linda Perham: As chair of the all-party group on Crossrail, I warmly welcome the Secretary of State's announcement and accept his warnings about costs. Will he think about the costs of congestion and overcrowding if the system does not go ahead, and the delivery of regeneration to east London? The completed Crossrail scheme might bring £20 billion to the UK economy as a whole and we cannot afford to pass that by.

Alistair Darling: I agree that Crossrail could bring huge benefits to London in the future and relieve a lot of pressure now. However, the situation for Crossrail and other rail schemes throughout the country is exactly the same: we must ensure that we are far better at controlling costs in the future than we have been in the past so that we get £1-worth of benefit from every £1 that we spend. The case for Crossrail and many light rail schemes is strong, provided that we get the sums right.

Eric Pickles: Crossrail starts in my constituency, so the announcement is welcome. I understand what the Secretary of State says about consulting on the formula for funding, but surely by now he has a clear idea of the balance among public and private funding, the fare box and the Mayor. Will he give us an indication of that balance and tell us whether risk will be determined on the basis of it? Does he envisage Transport for London being a prime mover behind raising funds for the project?

Alistair Darling: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the business case for Crossrail that I published this morning—I know that he will not have had time to read it—which examines all those issues. My answer to him is the same as that which I gave to the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field) a few moments ago. The Montague report recognises that there are complex issues to consider and huge challenges to overcome. It is important to have the right mix of funding and to organise things in the right manner. I have agreed proposals in the document with the Mayor on the future organisation and delivery of the project.

Graham Stringer: I hope that my right hon. Friend will accept that his decision on light rail in Manchester will be met by anger and disbelief. I, and virtually everyone in Greater Manchester, I am sure, think that stopping the scheme at this stage is unacceptable. Does he accept that the National Audit Office report gave the Metrolink a clean bill of health and that the cost-benefit analysis of the scheme was positive? Does he also accept that if the Deputy Prime Minister had not dithered four years ago, the scheme would have gone ahead at much less cost? Will he look forward to getting the scheme going as quickly as possible because it is good for the environment and the travelling public, and essential to the economy of Greater Manchester?

Alistair Darling: I fully recognise the disappointment that will exist in Manchester. I accept that the Manchester metro has been successful and that it got a good assessment from the NAO, but there is no getting away from the fact that the cost of the extension has increased dramatically over the past few years. As I said earlier, no Government can accept such escalating costs—there is no guarantee that they have peaked yet. We were being asked to pay more money for the scheme. The situation applies not only to Manchester, but to the schemes in Leeds and south Hampshire. I suggest that we need to sit down with local authorities to determine whether there are ways of making such schemes affordable. As I have said before, and as the strategy document makes clear, light rail is important, but we cannot find ourselves in a situation in which annual payments rise at such a dramatic rate over a short time. No Government could sign up to that. I understand what my hon. Friend says, and I hope that the measures I have announced on further discussions, franchising and so on will help to resolve what is undoubtedly a difficult problem, but we have to ensure that if we spend all this money, we get value for money.

John Redwood: I welcome the Secretary of State's realism on new tram schemes. They are heavy loss makers and cost overruns are big. Is he saying, as I would, that they should not be subsidised, or is he saying that there is a level of subsidy that he would negotiate, but it should be much lower than the current level?

Alistair Darling: Nearly all public transport is subsidised to some extent. I am certainly not against the principle of the public contributing; the question is the degree of subsidy. I was happy to agree a contribution two years ago. What concerns me is that costs have risen again since then. There comes a point when we have to say, "Hold on. Are we doing this the right way?" My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Stringer) was right: the NAO said that the Manchester metro is a good scheme. It was critical, however, of how Governments of both parties procure such things and ensure that they are done properly. Frankly, if we are to build light railways, we have to ensure that we get the sums right in the first place. I understand the disappointment in different parts of the country, but the bigger folly would be to proceed with something when the costs are not nailed down.

Andy Reed: For the one third of my constituents who rely on buses, it is great that there will be specified circumstances for the new quality contracts. Will my right hon. Friend give examples of the specific circumstances in which they will be allowed for local authorities? Will they include places such as Loughborough? It has a good quality bus initiative, but it needs to go much further because passengers are seeing bus services slashed almost overnight. For the two thirds of motorists in my constituency, can he guarantee that there will be clean fuels through biomass, biofuels and fuel cell technology in the near future?

Alistair Darling: I like the way in which my hon. Friend divides up his constituents so neatly.
	On the latter point, the White Paper has a lot to say on the need to promote cleaner fuels. On bus franchising, I deliberately said that we are making proposals in specific circumstances. For example, last week I said that I wanted to devolve power to passenger transport authorities in relation to rail travel. If a PTA makes sensible decisions about heavy rail, light rail or buses, it might be able to implement them only if it has some control of the buses, and we might consider that request. Similarly, if we establish a pilot scheme on the measures relating to road pricing, bus franchising would almost certainly have to be part of the scheme. The London scheme showed that there needs to be overall control. However, I shall not approve schemes when nothing is happening to improve public transport. The evidence up and down the country is that when councils and bus companies work together, they can achieve a great deal. The proposal is specific, but it is welcome as an extra power that we need to make transport work.

Mike Hancock: The people of south Hampshire will obviously be disappointed, but they will accept that the announcement was fairly predictable because of the cost escalation. However, several million pounds have been spent over 15 years on trying to create an affordable light railway system. Will the Secretary of State expand on his statement that the Government will look urgently at how light rail could be made more affordable, including the best approach to procurement, because we have been trying to do that with his officials for the past 10 years?

Alistair Darling: I welcome the hon. Gentleman's realism on the decision and the problem with costs. It is only in the past two or three years that there has been a real problem with costs, and account must be taken of the amount of risk that investors are willing to take and the cost of that risk. I have said before that I have spoken to the banks that are investing in the scheme. They said that the business is marginal to them and they are upping their costs. One memorably said to me in private, "If you pay, you're daft." We have to ensure that we have a sensible way of procuring such schemes and it must provide value for money. That is not the case with the current system, as the hon. Gentleman recognises. I am afraid that time after time, light rail, heavy rail and road schemes cost a lot more than the original proposal. That has to stop.

Colin Challen: I am naturally disappointed, as I think my other colleagues from Leeds will be, about the announcement on the Leeds supertram. As my right hon. Friend has left the door open on discussions to find creative ways to finance it, will he meet representatives from Leeds, which is, after all, the north's most successful city after 24 years of a Labour administration, to discuss those creative ways and see how creative the Government can be in financing the Leeds supertram scheme?

Alistair Darling: I met representatives from Leeds, although I appreciate that the regime has changed since then. I made it clear earlier this year that we could not pay the sort of costs that they faced. On top of that, the scheme that they proposed was less substantial than the original one. That cannot go on. That is why I made it clear that we cannot accept the proposals because of the cost escalations. We and the local authorities in Leeds and elsewhere will, of course, discuss how such schemes can be better procured in future. However, I do not think that anything has changed materially since I met the Leeds representatives a few months ago. Of course, my ministerial colleagues and I are always happy to discuss such matters with all hon. Members.

Chris Grayling: The Secretary of State will be aware that the original 10-year plan document contained future projects for the rail network that appear to have been dropped in the past couple of years or so. The new document contains no specific references to future rail projects. Which projects does he expect to bring back and complete during the period covered by the document?

Alistair Darling: A number of rail projects are under way and planned. They will go ahead, not least because the railways are getting a large share of the money—for example, the southern power supply is being upgraded. The hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) said that nothing has been done on the east coast main line, but work is being done there and the west coast main line is getting £7.5 billion. The bigger problem for him and his Front-Bench colleagues is how on earth he can say what he does when he is committed to cutting transport spending by nearly £2 billion.

Rob Marris: What will the Government do to encourage bicycling?

Alistair Darling: The strategy document sets out a range of measures to encourage people to cycle. I strongly believe that we should make it as attractive as possible through cycle lanes and similar measures, but at the end of the day it is up to individuals to choose whether they get on a bike. We are doing a lot, but I strongly believe that people should make their own decisions on that.

Nicholas Winterton: I very much share the objectives mentioned by the Secretary of State and agree that infrastructure improvement, not least road improvements, are essential to economic progress. Does he accept, however, that road pricing could be regressive in rural areas? The Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. McNulty), was courteous and sympathetic when I led a delegation to meet him. Does the Secretary of State agree that road pricing in rural areas, where there is only limited public transport, could be damaging and very regressive?

Alistair Darling: The report recognises that many issues need to be resolved in the new system as against the current system, and the hon. Gentleman is right to say that we need to do that. We need to consider all of them. For example, rural drivers complain that they have to travel longer distances. If there is a consensus—there is a glimmer of one in that the Front-Bench spokesmen say that there is nothing wrong with the principle—it is important to consider the detail. The new system is at least 10 to 15 years away. It would be nice if we could all work together because, frankly, whatever we decide has to stand the test of different Administrations over many years.

Joyce Quin: I very much welcome what my right hon. Friend said, in particular on local and regional transport strategies, but in view of the interest in the House and the recent presentation of Bills, including one by myself, on free passes for pensioners, will he continue to look at the case for extending free bus travel for pensioners across England and ending the current postcode lottery? Given that that would cost £300 million, which compares favourably in economical terms with some of his spending announcements, will he consider that with his Cabinet colleagues before the next election?

Alistair Darling: I think that it is better if local authorities decide those things. On the question of the £300 million, however, the problem in transport is that there are lots of demands for £300 million, but the rail regulator has asked for a total of £5 billion. It is not as if we have lots of money and are short of ideas on how to spend it. I accept the point made by my right hon. Friend, but to be realistic, at the moment I am not persuaded that I should take £300 million to spend on that proposal. It would be better to leave those things to local authorities, because, as I said, a large part of our budget is under pressure. Although there will be improvements, we must make sure that we spend the money on the right things.

Pete Wishart: Can the Secretary of State confirm that any plans for national road tolling will extend to Scotland? He will know that responsibility for setting tolls for Scotland's roads rests with the Scottish Parliament. What discussions has he had with them, and what would happen if the Scottish Parliament rejected the idea?

Alistair Darling: Essentially, we are talking about moving away from the present system of taxation to a new system of charging. Because taxation is a reserved matter and applies to the whole of the United Kingdom, the proposal would apply to all of the UK. I know that the hon. Gentleman has terrible difficulty with that—I tried to persuade him earlier that the UK is a very good thing for Scotland—but he is in a minority of one. I see that he is still sitting on his own—I do not know where his colleagues have got to.

Clive Betts: Could I bring my right hon. Friend back to bus franchising? Many Labour Members welcome the extension in principle of bus franchising, but are concerned about the specified circumstances in which it would be introduced? In South Yorkshire, despite the efforts of the local authority and the passenger transport authority to work with bus operators, bus ridership has fallen year on year because bus services have failed local people.

Alistair Darling: I am aware that in some parts of the country the relationship, for whatever reason, between bus companies and the local authority is not good. I do not, however, want to introduce franchising simply to get people to work together if they ought to be working together in the first place. I set out clearly in my statement and in the strategy paper the circumstances in which we will consider an extension. If there is a particular problem in Sheffield, I shall look at it—in fact, I will ask the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. McNulty), to do so at the end of this statement.

Robert Key: In working up his concepts for the future of transport, will the Secretary of State bear in mind the sophisticated position of rural areas? It is not just a question of people in the countryside or people in the towns—most people in the countryside work in towns, and whether we are talking about road pricing, congestion charging, fiscal regimes or bus subsidies, we face a problem now. Our constituents and local authorities need a steer, and the sooner that the Secretary of State can attract attention to the problem, the better for all of us.

Alistair Darling: I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman has probably not had a chance to read the paper yet, but it looks at transport in the round. I also appreciate his point about the sometimes artificial division between town and country. The world is not like that and, thanks to his teaching many years ago, I know enough about geography to understand that.

Dave Watts: I very much support my right hon. Friend's statement, but can he turn his attention to Crossrail? He said in his statement that it will cost £10 billion, but he will be aware that many people think that it will cost £15 billion or more. Who will pay for any overspend, and can he assure me that it will not come out of the national budget?

Alistair Darling: I asked Adrian Montague to look at that in detail because I wanted to be satisfied that we could nail down the costs. If my hon. Friend looks at the review, he will see that Mr. Montague has taken a robust look at the issue, and believes that the cost will be about £10 billion. He recommending dropping—we are doing so—the line into Richmond, which will save about £1 billion. As with every big project that we have talked about this afternoon, we must be clear at the outset what the costs are and nail them down. We must also make sure that the risk falls in such a way that there is a huge incentive to control costs.

Andrew Rosindell: The Secretary of State will be aware that the Crossrail project will have a major impact on my constituency of Romford, particularly the Crowlands area of central Romford, where it is proposed to build a large depot, and Gidea Park, where a railway siding is to be constructed. Will the Secretary of State assure my constituents that a full and meaningful consultation will take place before final decisions are made, that changes to the plan are possible, and that the current proposals are not set in stone? If they do go ahead, can he confirm that people along the route who are affected will be offered sufficient compensation for the blight that those two projects may well cause in my constituency?

Alistair Darling: For the sake of brevity, I refer the hon. Gentleman to my written statement, which is being issued in parallel with this oral statement and covers many of those issues. Of course, consultation is needed, and the route is subject to the provisions of a hybrid Bill. It may not quite be a unique opportunity, but there will be a chance for all hon. Members to participate in the proceedings on that Bill. The hon. Gentleman may wish to serve on the hybrid Bill Committee—if he has a word with the Whip, I am sure that he can sign up to it, although anyone who has served on one may caution against doing so.

Clive Soley: I thank the Secretary of State for his announcement on Crossrail, which is vital to the prosperity of west London. I agree that it is probably right to drop the Richmond link, which was one of the most environmentally damaging sections of the route. Echoing the point that he has just made, consultation and giving information to the public, given the nature and size of the project, are incredibly important, and I should be grateful if he would keep his eye on that.

Alistair Darling: I agree with my hon. Friend.

Richard Allan: When the channel tunnel rail link is completed in a few years' time, it will be faster to travel to Paris from St. Pancras than to Sheffield. While we are all happy for travellers to Paris, does the Secretary of State sympathise with many people in Sheffield and the east midlands who feel that they have a Cinderella rail service? Can he assure us that investment in everyday services will not lose out to prestige projects elsewhere?

Alistair Darling: I agree that it is important to improve domestic services. There have been problems on the midland main line, some of which have been exacerbated by the work currently taking place at St. Pancras. The hon. Gentleman makes a perfectly good point, but it is possible to have good domestic services as well as fast links to the continent.

Keith Bradley: The people of south Manchester will be hugely disappointed by the latest delay in the Metrolink extension through my constituency to Manchester airport, which would achieve a truly integrated system of heavy rail, light rail and air travel. However, will my right hon. Friend's officials urgently meet officials from the passenger transport authority in Greater Manchester to discuss procurement, refranchising agreements and devolved capital budgets to ensure that a scheme for south Manchester can be introduced at the earliest opportunity?

Alistair Darling: My right hon. Friend has done a great deal to promote the cause of Manchester Metrolink, particularly the extension to south Manchester, and I have had many discussions with him, for which I am grateful. I readily accept his general proposition but, as I said in my statement, we need to consider urgently how we procure those things more sensibly so that we can secure the gains of a tram link between various forms of transport, not least at the airport. I am happy to agree with that proposition, which would benefit light rail, not just in Manchester but throughout the country.

Clive Efford: I welcome my right hon. Friend's statement on Crossrail, which is crucial to the capital's future prosperity and will create transport links essential to the regeneration of the south-east Thames gateway area and some of the most deprived communities, not just in London but throughout the area. May I stress the need for a station at Woolwich so that that part of south-east London can enjoy the wider benefits of that major infrastructure development?

Alistair Darling: That is one of the many issues that we must consider, as must the Cross London Rail Links company before it promotes the scheme that will come before the House. I agree, however, with my hon. Friend's general proposition about the regeneration effect in south-east London.

Lorna Fitzsimons: My right hon. Friend will undoubtedly be aware of the great disappointment in Rochdale and Oldham, which have long been first in the queue of people asking for an expansion of the Greater Manchester Metrolink. Will he agree to meet my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, East and Saddleworth (Mr. Woolas), my right hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West and Royton (Mr. Meacher) and myself at the earliest possible opportunity to look at the chink of light offered by paragraph 16 of his statement where, if I understand him correctly, he is not saying "never" but "not now"?

Alistair Darling: My hon. Friend is understandably expressing her concern, but I do not wish to repeat what I said to other Greater Manchester Members. I, or one of my Ministers, will be more than happy to meet them as soon as possible.

Joan Ruddock: Londoners will welcome the extra money that my right hon. Friend has allocated, but can he provide reassurance about the extension to the east London line? Is it his intention that that project should be undertaken by Transport for London and, if so, is sufficient public money available to meet the need and to enable us to start the project as soon as possible?

Alistair Darling: Yes. I can confirm that we have allocated that additional money to London, following discussions with the Mayor. He will decide what projects he wishes to prioritise. We have given sufficient money to enable the Mayor to do what is necessary for the Olympics and also to undertake other schemes, if he wishes to do so. In the spirit of devolution and in recognition of the fact that perhaps the Mayor ought to announce these things himself, I shall go no further at this stage.

Jonathan R Shaw: My right hon. Friend is aware that we have investment in buses—some £10 million in Medway—but he is also aware that we have some misgivings about the Strategic Rail Authority's proposals for the integrated Kent franchise. Can he confirm that he will take charge of the new franchise for Kent and that he will be prepared to meet a delegation from Medway to discuss the cuts in Cannon Street services, which we oppose?

Alistair Darling: I may be wrong, but I recall meeting my hon. Friend very recently. My hon. Friend the Minister of State thinks he met him recently as well. While it is always nice to bump into each other, perhaps we cannot do so every week. In relation to the integrated Kent franchise, I am well aware of the controversy and the difficulties in Kent. As I said last week, the SRA will continue to be responsible for these matters until it is wound up next year. It is in the process of evaluating the latest round of consultations. I know that there are many issues to resolve and Ministers will be devoting their attention to them. At some stage, I shall be more than happy to see my hon. Friend yet again.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We must move on.

Balance of Funding Review Report

Nick Raynsford: With permission, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I shall make a statement about the balance of funding review report, which is published today, and about the Government's response. Before I begin, I should like to say a word or two about the speculation we have seen at the weekend and in yesterday's press that the Government have plans for huge increases in people's council tax bills. That is simply untrue. I shall say more about it when I come to the report's conclusions on council tax.
	The review started in April 2003. I chaired the steering group, which included my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, and the Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Phil Hope), as well as other senior figures from central and local government, the academic world, business, the union movement and professional bodies.
	The remit of the review was to establish the nature and priority of the balance of funding issue and to identify and analyse options for change, setting out the pros and cons of each. We commissioned research, held a public consultation and sought further evidence on the main options for reform raised in the public consultation. We held nine meetings in all. All the papers presented to us are available on the website of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. I must first record my thanks to the steering group members, to everybody who responded to the review's public consultation last year and to those who presented papers to the group. Secondly, I should like to welcome the report published on 16 July by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister: Housing, Planning and Local Government Committee following its inquiry on local government revenue. There is significant common ground between the Committee's conclusions and those of the balance of funding review. The Government will reply formally to the Committee in due course.
	As those who read the report will find, some of the press speculation of recent days has been wholly misleading and inaccurate. As the report makes clear:
	"The Review has been conducted for the Government, not by the Government. It follows that this report is not a statement of Government policy. It is rather an analysis of issues and options. Although it draws some conclusions, in line with its remit it does not make recommendations."
	It has always been the case—indeed, it was included in the terms of reference—that the review would simply set out the pros and cons of a range of short and long-term options. As the report states quite clearly, the aim of the review was
	"not to provide a detailed blueprint for reform, but to gain consensus at this stage of the argument on the broad issues, and to agree what the most likely options were, as the basis for more detailed work in the future."
	So we are at the start of this process of further work and there is a great deal more detailed thinking to do.
	I shall set out the main conclusions of the review. First, like the Select Committee, the review concludes that there are strong arguments for shifting the balance towards more local funding. However, that depends on the feasibility and desirability of any measures to achieve it. It would have to be possible to achieve satisfactory equalisation of needs in the distribution of resources between local authorities alongside any greater local revenue raising.
	Secondly, again like the Select Committee, the review concludes that council tax should be retained but reformed. It has important advantages as a local tax. However, in the opinion of the group, it will need reform in order to help people on low incomes and to reduce the impact of revaluation. Further work will be needed on the options for such reform. A fair and effective system of council tax benefit will be a vital component of any reform package. It is clear, for example, that levels of take-up of council tax benefit among pensioners and others on low incomes remains low in comparison to other benefits.
	As for council tax bands, the report concludes:
	"There is a clear case for reviewing council tax bands and the ratios between them at the time of revaluation."
	I should point out that the Government have always made it clear that we would want to consider these issues with other stakeholders ahead of revaluation. But the report adds that
	"particular care is needed to ensure that council taxpayers on low incomes living in high value properties are not unfairly affected."
	It goes on:
	"Further detailed work is now required on how council tax might be reformed, based on a clear vision of the direction of travel."
	Far from proposing a trebling of people's council tax bills, the review states that
	"the aim should be to avoid significant changes to the overall liabilities of taxpayers."
	There has been much comment in the media about the ideas submitted by the New Policy Institute. It is certainly true that the NPI gave evidence to the review on changes to the banding structure and its ideas are well documented in the report. Its original paper for the review has been available on the website of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister since January. However, these are the NPI's ideas and they are not Government policy. Indeed, they are not recommended by the review.
	Thirdly, the review concludes that the only way to achieve a major shift in the balance of funding is to supplement a reformed council tax with relocalised business rates or a local income tax or a combination of both. None of these options would be easy and further work would be required here, too. Fourthly, relocalisation of business rates could give councils greater incentives to promote economic development and improve links with business, as well as altering the balance of funding. However, business has serious concerns, including potential risks to its productivity and competitiveness.
	Fifthly, although a local income tax would be more progressive and more buoyant than council tax, it would also be less predictable as a result. Considerable further work would be required to address the substantial technical and administrative issues and costs, as well as the impact on individuals and employers, before firm conclusions could be reached on the feasibility or desirability of a local income tax. In that respect, the report makes difficult reading for those who regard local income tax as a simple solution. As we say in the report, the devil is very much in the detail. I note that the Select Committee takes a similar view. Sixthly, the review concluded that smaller taxes or charges do not provide the potential for major change in the balance of funding. The case for and against each such option should be judged on its own merits.
	I turn now to the Government's response. We are developing a new 10-year vision for local government. We want local government to be more effective and more accountable. A fair and sustainable finance system is crucial to that. We welcome the balance of funding review report as a major contribution to the debate. The review could not look at everything. However, while it does not make recommendations, it has reached a number of important conclusions defining the issues, narrowing down the options and assessing the case for change, as well as investigating much of the preliminary detail. It provides a sound platform from which to go forward. The Government can accept right away that council tax should be retained but reformed. It is clear that council tax is far from perfect and that changes are needed. We are, for example, working with colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions to improve take-up of council tax benefit. That work will continue.
	The report flags up the need for more work before decisions can be taken on how council tax should be reformed or on the possible means of shifting the balance of funding. These matters need to be considered carefully and in detail. We must keep up the momentum, but we must also ensure that any changes are soundly based. As I said earlier, the press speculation that the Government are planning a council tax shake-up that will lead to huge rises in council tax is untrue. Any suggestion that we have opted for any particular course of council tax reform is just plain wrong. The review concludes that
	"the detailed case for and against some kind of sub-national approach should be considered."
	It is right that we should do this, but not because we want to hit middle England—precisely the opposite. We need to consider options for regional banding in order to ensure that areas of high property price growth such as London and the south-east are not unduly affected by revaluation. One thing is clear: there are no easy answers. The subject needs extremely careful examination and detailed consideration; it is far too important to be a political football.
	We have therefore decided to set up an independent inquiry, to be undertaken by Sir Michael Lyons to look into these matters and to report back by the end of 2005 to my right hon. Friends the Deputy Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Sir Michael is very widely respected and brings to the task a wealth of local government and other relevant experience. I can think of no one better able to take forward the work that the balance of funding review has begun. Hon. Members will recall that Sir Michael has a distinguished background in local government. He is currently director of the Institute of Local Government Studies at the university of Birmingham, and between 1994 and 2001 he held the position of chief executive of Birmingham city council. He was recently appointed as deputy chair of the Audit Commission. He is a member of the Treasury's public services productivity panel and was a member of Sir George Bain's review of the fire service. In 2004, he reported to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor on the relocation of public sector jobs away from London and the south-east.
	The inquiry will consider, in the light of the report by the balance of funding review and other developments such as new funding arrangements for schools, the detailed case for changes to the present system of local government funding. It will make recommendations on any changes that are necessary and how to implement them, and it will take evidence from stakeholders.
	In particular, the inquiry will make recommendations on how best to reform council tax, taking into account the forthcoming revaluation. It will assess the case for providing local authorities with increased flexibility to raise additional revenue and for making a significant shift in the current balance of funding. It will conduct a thorough analysis of options to complement council tax, including local income tax, reform of non-domestic rates and other possible local taxes and charges, as well as the possible combination of such options. It will consider the implications for the financing of possible elected regional assemblies, as well as any implications that its recommendations have for other parts of the United Kingdom.
	The Government now look forward to a period of focused study by the independent inquiry that will build on the balance of funding review's work. We can then take firm decisions on the best way forward in putting in place the fair and sustainable system of local government finance that is our objective.

Philip Hammond: I thank the Minister for his statement and for letting me have a copy of it in advance, together with a copy of the report of the steering group.
	I associate the Opposition with the Minister's thanks to the organisations outside Government that served on the steering group. It has been a valuable exercise in raising awareness of the issues involved in local government finance. I congratulate the ODPM Committee on the publication of its report, which usefully complements the work of the balance of funding steering group, although we do not necessarily support all its recommendations.
	The only people who will not welcome analysis of the future options for local government financing and the assessment of the advantages and disadvantages of each are those who have already made up their mind in advance of hearing the arguments. Will the Minister confirm that the Liberal Democrat policy of replacing council tax with a local income tax is wholly discredited by the balance of funding review and by the Select Committee report? Does he agree that a local income tax would do nothing to address the balance of funding, would increase dependency on Whitehall handouts, and would hammer hard-working families with soaring tax bills?
	The Minister made great play of his claim that the review is a report to Government, not a report by Government. In fact, the review steering group was chaired by the Minister, and two other Ministers and senior civil servants served on it. When he announced it in January last year, he billed it as his major review of local government funding. In his statement, however, he made it clear that the Government are not going to tell the public, this side of a general election, precisely what their plans are. They are not going to allow individual council tax payers to see precisely how much they will pay in increased local taxes as part of the raft of third-term tax rises that this Labour Government are planning. Instead, they are going to bury their plans in yet another inquiry that will report after the general election, leaving a double whammy in store for local tax-payers in 2007, with the already planned revaluation on top of these proposals. Many ordinary families whose only crime is to live in areas where house prices have risen rapidly over the past few years will be alarmed at the proposals for an increase to a 10-band council tax system.
	Today, the Minister tried to distance himself from that aspect of the steering group's report, especially the input from the New Policy Institute. However, just a few weeks ago he told the ODPM Committee:
	"You will be aware that we took a lot of detailed evidence, particularly from the New Policy Institute . . . I do not think it would break too many confidences and anticipate the conclusions of the review to say that we obviously looked with some interest at those."
	In 2003, in the Standing Committee that considered the Local Government Bill, the Minister said that the Government would look favourably on increasing the number of bands in the council tax system.
	It is clear to anyone who makes an objective reading of the review and of what the Minister has said on the record that the Government's preferred option is a retention of the existing council tax system, but with massive increases in the council tax payable for those living in higher-value properties, meaning that those who live in areas where house prices have risen most could find themselves paying three times as much as at present. That would punish ordinary families and pensioners on modest incomes who happen to have lived for a long time in a home that is now worth far more than one that they could afford to buy. The true reason for the Government's interest in an increased number of bands and a higher multiple of band D being payable in the higher bands is simply the Treasury's desire to tax the unrealised, illiquid, notional wealth represented by rising housing values—a sort of crude wealth tax by stealth.
	As if that is not bad enough, the review calls for further work on a supplementary income tax that would be levied in addition to, not instead of, the council tax. Is not that supplementary income tax a back-door way around the Prime Minister's pledge not to increase income tax at all?
	Will the Minister answer a couple of specific questions? If the balance of funding needs to be adjusted in the interests of local accountability, does the Minister accept that there is also a case for allowing greater local discretion over the balance of spending, with more priorities being set locally and fewer set nationally? If so, can he, in the light of last week's statement by the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, clarify the Government's intentions on funding education and confirm their commitment to reducing the levels of ring-fencing from the record highs that they have reached under this Government?
	We welcome the Government's recognition of the burden that their council tax increases place on those on lower incomes. Does the Minister recall, however, that before the 1997 general election the Chancellor announced the end of means-testing for elderly people? Will not his proposals for mitigating the impact of his council tax increases on pensioners result in an increase in the means-testing of those pensioners?
	Turning to business rates, will the Minister confirm that for as long as equalisation remains in its present form, neither repatriating local business rates to local councils nor retaining a national system with a higher cap on the annual increases will redress the balance of funding issue? All it will do is deliver more revenue to the Treasury. Will he give the House an undertaking that if the Government opt for the route of repatriating business rates, they will recognise the fact that businesses have no democratic input into the local authorities that tax them and must therefore be protected from discriminatory and unfair differential taxation, in the interests of equity and of maintaining the competitiveness of British business?
	The original motivation for embarking on this balance of funding review was stated to be a desire to improve local government accountability through achieving a better balance between locally raised and centrally raised taxes. Since then, however, the Government have panicked in the face of growing public outrage at the level of council tax—up 70 per cent. since 1997, with the comprehensive spending review projecting a further 20 per cent. increase over the next three years.
	It is not the system of council tax that is the problem; it is Labour's fiddled funding and the bureaucratic burdens imposed on local government, forcing it to unacceptable levels. With the average band D council tax now costing almost £100 a month, and many people on low incomes finding that council tax is the single largest outgoing in their monthly budget, it is no wonder that the pressure is on. The real solution, however, is to reduce the burdens on local government and to adopt fairer funding formulas that will reduce the very high gearing levels experienced by many local authorities.
	Because of the huge increases in council tax, running at three times the rate of inflation year after year under Labour's fat Government, no change is not an option. But neither is ignoring the underlying problem. Before operating on the patient, we need to diagnose the real underlying sickness: excessive burdens imposed on local government by Whitehall, with a constant torrent of red tape and regulations spewing out of the over-mighty, interfering ODPM, and a fiddled grant settlement. Only when the underlying disease is tackled will the various options for the reform of local government finance be able to deliver the desired result. In the meantime, hard-working families and pensioners across England face the prospect of yet higher bills from 2007, as a result of revaluation and rebanding. That will be the Minister's Department's contribution to Labour's third-term tax rises.

Nick Raynsford: The hon. Gentleman made a good start, but the longer he went on, the more he lost the argument and the House. I appreciate his comments about the review being a valuable exercise in raising awareness, however, and I join him in welcoming the Select Committee's report.
	The hon. Gentleman asked about the Liberal Democrat policy of replacing council tax with a local income tax, and I can confirm that the review reached the clear conclusion that that would not be the right way forward. We foresaw that huge administrative, technical and distributional difficulties would be associated with the introduction of a local income tax; they are spelled out in considerable detail in the report. Only the hopelessly naive or over-optimistic could believe that this is a simple exercise. It is not.
	The hon. Gentleman queried the fact that this was a report to Government rather than by Government, making the point that I had chaired the review and that two Ministers had served on it. However, he failed to recognise the fact that three councillors from other parties, including one Conservative councillor, served on the review, plus a large number of people with no political affiliation and entirely independent credentials. It was a large, inclusive body, and most people—including representatives of the hon. Gentleman's party—congratulated us on the inclusive way in which we had conducted the review. It was all-encompassing and, therefore, a review to Government.
	The bulk of the hon. Gentleman's speech was based on Conservative scaremongering, about which we have heard a certain amount over the last couple of days. I detected a degree of frustration on his part that both the statement and the balance of funding review have clearly shot the Conservatives' fox. Far from being a report that spells out an arrangement that will lead, in their words, to massive increases in council tax, it makes it quite clear that
	"the aim should be to avoid significant changes to the overall liabilities of taxpayers."
	Retention, with reform, of council tax is our policy. A massive increase in council tax is pure Opposition scaremongering, and is wholly unfounded.
	The hon. Gentleman asked about the case for greater flexibility for local authorities, and I wholly endorse that. That is why we have introduced the prudential borrowing regime this year, which gives local authorities the freedom to borrow on their own discretion, dismantling the highly centralist and restrictive borrowing controls that his party introduced when it was in government. He also asked about business rates. The report sets out the arguments about relocalisation—and the business community's concerns about that—fairly and objectively, and presents a series of options that will have at their heart the need to reassure businesses that they can contribute to local services, which they recognise the need to do, without being vulnerable to unreasonable and excessive demands.
	The hon. Gentleman spoke at considerable length about the claimed additional tax burden. I would simply refer him to table B.12 of the balance of funding review, which shows that, in real terms, the average local tax per dwelling in 2004–05 remains below the level that applied in 1990–91, when his party was in government and had just visited the disaster of the poll tax on the country. We are not going to make the same mistake.

Edward Davey: I thank the Minister for his statement, and for his original decision to carry out the balance of funding review. But, having decided on a review, have not the Government now decided just to review that review? Is not the new Lyons review all about ducking the hard decisions on council tax, rather than taking them? Does not the Minister realise that dither and delay simply mean more years of the unfair council tax?
	This Government were prepared to risk the lives of British servicemen and women in Iraq on the basis of a dodgy dossier, yet after 15 months of detailed expert study, Labour is incapable of taking a decision on the future of council tax. The Minister talked about ideas for tinkering with council tax. Does he not realise that none of them will end its unfairness? Indeed, is it not a key finding of the review that even a reformed council tax would not help the balance of funding problem? Does not his support for revaluation and new council tax bands place a double threat of higher tax directly over the heads of millions of tax payers?
	Will the Minister confirm that the Government have no intention of coming clean on their council tax hike until after the general election? If the Government will not tell the people their real plans, will he tell the House what the difference now is between Labour and the Conservatives on council tax, given that the Tories also have no policy? Ministers are to be congratulated on one thing: their willingness to eat humble pie on local income tax. The report says that a local income tax
	"would be more progressive . . . than council tax."
	So why will the Labour Government not commit themselves to fairer taxes, not higher taxes?
	Does the Minister not realise that today's further delay in tackling the balance of funding amounts to a betrayal of local government? Is he not allowing the Prime Minister the room that he wants to continue to attack local democracy? Is it not the Government's real policy to change the balance of funding simply by nationalising the funding of schools? Will the Minister confirm his personal view, given at the Institute for Public Policy Research on 10 May, that Whitehall control of education was not a "magic solution" for the balance of funding, and that centralising education finance was a "bizarre suggestion"?
	Today's report could have been written by Lord Butler: it was good on analysis but weak on conclusions. The Deputy Prime Minister might have been acting in good faith when he set up the review of council tax, but today's report shows that he is not competent to take the decisions that council tax payers want.

Nick Raynsford: One could not help but notice the sound of a needle trapped in the single groove of a cracked gramophone record, repeating "Lord Butler" and "Iraq" over and over again. That seems to be the only noise that the Liberal Democrats can make at the moment. They should at least be aware that this debate is about local government finance. There will be a full opportunity for them to voice their other concerns later.
	The hon. Gentleman claimed that the Lyons review would duck the issue. If he really believes that, he does not know Sir Michael Lyons, or the very considerable capability of the man and his commitment to achieving a lasting and effective reform of local government finance. These are not easy issues. The hon. Gentleman knows very well that they are complex issues that require a great deal of careful, painstaking thought. He also knows that an inclusive group of some 20 members from a range of backgrounds and political parties—including a Liberal Democrat councillor, who we welcomed on board the balance of funding review—which helped to achieve a consensual approach, is not the body to take hard decisions on the intricate, detailed issues that will determine the long-term future for local government finance. That is why we have invited Sir Michael Lyons to undertake the review, and I am confident that the outcome will be very positive indeed. This is certainly not tinkering, but, as the hon. Gentleman made that charge, I shall make the point to him that we do not introduce ill-thought-out proposals and assume that they can be implemented simply with the wave of a hand. It is much harder than that.
	The hon. Gentleman talked about increases in council tax. The Liberal Democrats have the unenviable record of the largest increases in council tax of any political party. Their increases averaged 6 per cent. this year, compared with 5.4 per cent. from Conservative councils, and 4.7 per cent. from Labour councils. I also remind him that the councils with the highest increases last year, which we debated last night on the capping order, were Liberal Democrat Shepway in terms of district councils, and Liberal Democrat Torbay in terms of unitary authorities. His party has an unenviable record, and he would do better to talk to his members about keeping council tax down rather than to give lectures here.
	Finally, on local income tax, the balance of funding review has made a balanced and objective assessment. It has identified both the potential advantages—the hon. Gentleman has highlighted the point of greater progressivity—and the considerable disadvantages and technical obstacles that need to be examined far more   carefully than his party has ever been prepared to do.

Andrew Bennett: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on getting Sir Michael Lyons to take the work forward. Will he also accept, however, that some aspects of the work are urgent, particularly getting council tax benefit take-up improved, which ought to be in place by next April? A revision of the amount of money being paid by local citizens compared with businesses is also needed, and should be in place quickly. If we are to have extra bands, they must be in place so that the revaluation, which starts next April, can take them into account.

Nick Raynsford: I thank my hon. Friend for his comments, and I congratulate him on the thorough and thoughtful report that the Select Committee, under his chairmanship, conducted and published. I agree that Sir Michael Lyons is a formidable figure to carry forward this work, and that we should make rapid progress on issues such as take-up of council tax benefit, in relation to which there are real problems. That is why the Department for Work and Pensions is already undertaking work to improve council tax benefit take-up, and I assure him that we will continue to work closely with it to tackle this problem with the urgency that it deserves.

David Curry: I feel sorry for the poor old Minister. He knows very well that we could have got to this point after 15 minutes with officials, 15 months ago, instead of spending 15 months in laborious working parties. At no stage did he or his office give the impression that they were simply working towards some provisional outcome. This is a funk, and it is a gold-plated, comprehensive funk.
	Will the Minister make it clear to Sir Michael Lyons that this is supposed to be about the balance of funding? Will he therefore ask him to examine seriously the argument for relocalisation of business rates to anchor businesses in the community and to give the community a stake in the success of business? That would be an extremely positive outcome and very good for local democracy.

Nick Raynsford: The right hon. Gentleman said that this could have been done in 15 minutes with officials. The hallmark of his party in government was an ill-thought-out reform that probably did have only 15 minutes' advice from officials, because the officials would undoubtedly, had they been given more time, have told it that the poll tax was an extremely foolish venture. We do not intend to repeat that mistake. We are doing this thoroughly, carefully and rigorously, and Sir Michael Lyons will be continuing the work that the balance of funding review has undertaken.
	The right hon. Gentleman has considerable experience of this matter. He spent most of his ministerial time trying to live down and repair the damage created by an ill-thought-out and rushed reform of local government finance. He should appreciate the importance of a measured, sensible and thorough approach.

Bill O'Brien: I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement this afternoon. I hope that he will continue to pursue this direction, and that a property-based tax will continue to apply to local government. I remember clearly the Committee that considered the poll tax: I was a member of that Committee, and the Leader of the Opposition was at that time one of the keen advocates of the poll tax, which failed miserably, and a property tax had to be introduced. I therefore consider keeping a property tax to be in the best interests of local government.
	My right hon. Friend referred to council tax banding in his statement, and said that a review of council tax bands is to take place. May I suggest that a regular review of council tax banding is also important, and that additional bands would be welcomed by members of the special interest group of municipal authorities, because a fairer balance is required in relation to tax bands? May I also—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That is quite sufficient. We must make speed.

Nick Raynsford: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I very much agree with my hon. Friend that the maintenance of a property tax as the basis for local government finance is the sensible way forward, which is the conclusion that the review has reached and that the Government have accepted. On the question of a review of banding, which he raised, we believe that that needs to be considered carefully, because there are considerable implications, both in relation to fairness and equity, and in terms of the impact of revaluation, which is due to come in from 2007. We are confident that the Lyons inquiry will be able to examine carefully those issues, building on the evidence that has been presented to the balance of funding review, and coming forward with firm suggestions to deal with those complex issues in the most equitable and fair way.

Henry Bellingham: On the subject of relocalisation of business rates, further to the point raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry), does the Minister agree that it is vital that he and his fellow Ministers consult widely with all the small business organisations, many of whom have bad memories of what happened in the 1980s, when many of their members were put out of business by excessive increases in business rates? Will he undertake today to enter into full consultation?

Nick Raynsford: I have announced today that the Lyons inquiry will involve consultation with stakeholders, and I have absolutely no doubt that Sir Michael will want to engage with representatives of the business community. I mentioned specifically small business, and I am sure that that is a grouping whose views will also be taken on board. The balance of funding review acknowledges exactly the fears and anxieties that the hon. Gentleman has voiced. It sets out three options, and it sets out the safeguards that it would view as appropriate were there a move towards relocalisation. His real concern, however, is further consultation, and I assure him that that will happen.

Jim Knight: I welcome the review and the further work that the Minister has announced. Can he confirm that the review so far has found no magic way of freezing funding of local government and local government finance, and yet maintaining services? Would not the implications of such a policy—the policy of the Conservative party—be either massive cuts or massive increases in council tax?

Nick Raynsford: My hon. Friend makes an extraordinarily good point. There is no magic way of maintaining and improving services, which the public want, while at the same time making massive cuts in local authority spending, which is the policy of the Conservative party. Its policies, if pursued over the spending review period, would result in a reduction of £4.8 billion in local government spending. That would have a drastic consequence for services run by local authorities. It is precisely because we do not have any illusions about magic solutions that we have approached this whole issue in an extremely hard-headed and rigorous way, and we intend to continue that approach.

Patrick Cormack: Having spent 15 months chairing this review, and sifting all the evidence, to what provisional view has the Minister come as to the correct balance of funding?

Nick Raynsford: When the hon. Gentleman has a chance to read through the review in detail, he will see that there is no single appropriate figure. The review makes the point that areas of considerable deprivation receive substantially more Government grant because of that deprivation. In evidence to the Select Committee, I quoted the London borough of Newham, which currently receives 90 per cent. of its funding from central Government. Even were the balance of funding changed from the current national average of 25:75 to 50:50, in the case of Newham, all other things being equal, its balance of funding would probably still be 20:80. There is not a magic national figure. The report acknowledges, however, the importance of trying to ensure that local government has greater accountability for its spending, and that a shift in the balance of funding would undoubtedly help to achieve that.

Patrick Hall: I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement. As he will know, many of my constituents are keen to engage in any consultation undertaken by the independent inquiry. I know that he does not want to pre-empt the outcome, but must not three elements be addressed if we are to reform council tax properly? First, there is the regressive nature of banding. Secondly, there is the unfairness to council tax payers of the nationalisation and capping of the business rate by the Conservatives. Thirdly—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I think that two are sufficient.

Nick Raynsford: I well recall the lively and interesting public meeting on this subject that my hon. Friend organised in his constituency. I was delighted to have an opportunity to meet his constituents and talk about a number of the issues involved. I assure him that we are committed to continuing consultation as we proceed with our work on the balance of funding. As for banding and the future of the business rate, they will be central issues for the Lyons inquiry to consider.

Harry Barnes: Along with my hon. Friend the Member for Normanton (Mr. O'Brien), I served on the Standing Committee that dealt with the poll tax—and if there was ever fiddled funding, that was it. Why has it taken us so long to make fairer arrangements for the council tax? It is an easy enough process, involving extra bands at each end and larger steps between the bands. My hon. Friend and I will not be here in autumn 2005, and we should like the process to be completed by then.

Nick Raynsford: First, as my hon. Friend will know, we have made a number of changes to the grant distribution formula to increase fairness. The Government have not been inactive in pursuing changes that have enhanced the fairness of the existing local government finance arrangements. Secondly, as my hon. Friend will also know, the revaluation is due to come into effect in 2007. Any changes of the order that he has described—the process is, in fact, more complex than his question implied—should be introduced according to the same timetable to avoid unnecessary turbulence and repeated alterations, which cause difficulty to both individuals and local authorities.

Clive Betts: I welcome my right hon. Friend's statement about council tax bands and benefits, but does he accept from the review and the Select Committee that if we are to have a radical change in the balance of funding there are only two ways in which to proceed? Either there must be a shift in the amount of income that local government controls through localisation of the business rate, or there must be a reduction in the amount of spending that it controls through centralisation of control over school budgets. Does my right hon. Friend accept that the vast majority of his hon. Friends would like him to take the route of increased local democracy rather than that of increased central control?

Nick Raynsford: My hon. Friend made an important contribution to the Select Committee's report. He will know that the issues are complex, and must be approached in a measured way. I think that the report has done just that, and I am confident that the Lyons inquiry will follow in the same tradition.

Members Sworn

The following Members took and subscribed the Oath:
	Parmjit Singh Gill Esq., for Leicester, South
	Liam Byrne Esq., for Birmingham, Hodge Hill

Points of Order

Patrick McLoughlin: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You will know that yesterday was the last day for questions to be tabled to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. I tabled a question to the Secretary of State, which was drawn as Question 3. Today the Department informed me that the question had been transferred to the Department of Trade and Industry. That obviously denies me the chance to put a supplementary question to the Secretary of State during oral questions.
	This is important, Mr. Speaker, because of a serious issue relating to a company in my constituency that recycles the vast majority of car batteries in this country—some 99 per cent. There is a great danger that the company could be under threat as a result of a decision made by DEFRA. When I challenged the Department, it told me that the matter was not its responsibility, but that of the DTI. Not one Minister in the DTI is registered in the book of ministerial responsibilities as having responsibility for recycling, but earlier this year the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs answered two questions on the issue from my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman). The questions, which related directly to the recycling of batteries, were answered on 10 and 12 March.
	What protection can you give Members of Parliament, Mr. Speaker, when Departments are deliberately trying not to answer legitimate questions tabled in the House?

Mr. Speaker: Decisions on whether to transfer questions are for Ministers, not the Speaker; but when questions relate to matters for which more than one Minister is responsible, or when responsibility is ambiguous, I expect Ministers to be very cautious about transferring oral questions.

Alex Salmond: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. We are about to have an Adjournment debate on Iraq, under Standing Order No. 24 and the succeeding Standing Orders. While that might have been appropriate a week ago, there has been a significant development since then.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman is not going to refer to his standing as a candidate.

Alex Salmond: I might be a leader after the Prime Minister is not. [Hon. Members: "Ooh!"]
	The development is the Leader of the Opposition's decision that he can no longer support the Government's substantive position on Iraq. Under these changed circumstances, are there any remedies open to us under Standing Orders—or is it within your discretion, Mr. Speaker—to test whether the Prime Minister retains the confidence of the House on this issue, just as he has lost the confidence of the people?

Mr. Speaker: An application under Standing Order No. 24 has to be made to me before the Speaker's Conference in the morning.

Pensions (Clawbacks)

Kerry Pollard: I beg to move,
	That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision about pension clawbacks.
	I am delighted that so many Members share my interest in this issue.
	It is appropriate for me to begin by defining what is meant by "clawback". Different bodies use various terms—abatement, integration or clawback—that mean the same thing, and although there are others, those are the most common. Clawback is a term used in respect of pension schemes to describe what happens when a certain amount is deducted to take account of the state pension before the pension is calculated. It can be a deduction from pensionable pay, from the pension itself, or from both. Clawback applies only to final salary schemes, in which the pension is linked to earnings at, or close to, retirement. It is not relevant to money purchase schemes, in which the pension depends on investment results.
	The essence of my Bill, which is similar in scope to one enacted in the Republic of Ireland some four years ago, is that any future increase in state pension could not be clawed back. For example, if the state pension increased by £10 per week, that increase could not be clawed back in the manner of previous increases. As a result, over time the disbenefit of clawback, particularly for the low paid, would gradually disappear. This arrangement has been in place in the Republic of Ireland for some time without civilisation as we know it coming to an end.
	When my right hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney) was the Minister for Pensions, I tried to persuade him of the case for   introducing such a Bill. Although he was sympathetic, he said that he was unable to put the Government's weight behind it. I pointed out the existing, potentially discriminatory effects and the   impact on part-time workers, but he was stony-hearted. I also pointed out that the Chancellor of the Exchequer could well benefit through a small but significant reduction in benefit claimants. Those on low pensions would not need as much council tax relief, housing benefit subsidy or pension credit. Despite even this, my right hon. Friend remained unmoved.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, North (Linda Perham) took up the cudgels on behalf of the many pensioners and soon-to-be-pensioners who will be subject to clawback by organising an early-day motion and a very useful Adjournment debate. She and I have worked closely with our trade union colleagues in UNIFI, the GMB and the TUC to persuade companies to stop clawback altogether, or to effect gradual change to the benefit of scheme members. There have been successes; for example, Barclays and BP have amended their schemes. Indeed, Jim McNulty, a constituent of mine, is £1,500 a year better off as a result of our work. He is of course delighted.
	I recently received a letter from the Royal Bank of Scotland Group pensioners association, which continues actively to lobby the company to stop clawback. It has had some modest success, in that the company has agreed to limit the impact on part-time staff. At the company's recent annual general meeting, two pensioners lobbied the board. The public response was that the bank
	"would not consider the abolition or abatement of clawback".
	So there is still some work to do.
	Many schemes practise clawback, but thanks to pressure from trade unions, particularly UNIFI, some schemes are now abandoning the practice altogether or, like Barclays, amending it. Individual scheme members often do not know about clawback. Not everyone reads the small print, and by the time they realise that they are subject to clawback, it is too late to make other arrangements.
	The practice of clawback is quite common. According to the most recent survey by the National Association of Pension Funds, just under half of all private sector schemes include clawback; in the public sector, the figure is much less. Blue chip companies that practise clawback include British Aerospace, Cornhill, GKN, General Electric, Imperial Tobacco and Unilever.
	Why does clawback matter? Scheme beneficiaries usually assume that on retirement they will be better off by the amount of the state pension, less tax. Clawback also discriminates against the lower paid, particularly part-time workers. I shall give three fictitious but worked-out examples to demonstrate the disproportionate effect on the low paid. With clawback, John, a senior manager on a £45,000 final salary with 40 years' pensionable service, would receive a pension of £27,712, which is equivalent to 61.5 per cent. of final salary. With clawback, Bob, a shop floor worker on £15,000 and with the same length of service, would receive a pension of £7,712, which is equivalent to 51 per cent. of final salary. With clawback, Cathy, a part-time cleaner on £8,000 and with the same length of service, would receive a pension of £3,045, which is equivalent to 38.1 per cent. of final salary. These typical examples show that the lower a person's pay, the more they are penalised by clawback.
	Some schemes are now being run pro rata to help the lower paid and part-time workers. [Interruption.] If people realise in good time the effect of clawback on their pensions, they may be able to do something about it, such as paying additional voluntary contributions to make up the gap. If they discover the problem only upon retirement, however, it is too late and they must live on a far lower pension than they expected. [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. The House is being unfair to the hon. Gentleman.

Kerry Pollard: Our Government have tried to face up to the challenge of pension provision through initiatives to help the least well-off pensioners. There has been further significant progress, in that company schemes now have in place a safeguard, should they cease to be able to provide payments to pensioners who are entitled to draw on them. In addition, a substantial amount of taxpayers' money has been earmarked for company schemes that have failed to help those who, in good faith, paid into such schemes over the years, believing that that was the safest way to protect themselves in retirement. One such company is Dexion, which is based in Hemel Hempstead. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. McWalter), who did sterling work in persuading our Government to put in place a package of help.
	I recently attended a National Pensioners Convention meeting, at which we celebrated the 91st birthday of Jack Jones, who has done more for pensioners than anyone else whom I know. Also there was Rodney Bickerstaffe, who has taken Jack's place as the voice of pensioners. Both Jack and Rodney told me that they fully support our campaign to abolish clawback.
	UNIFI has been the leader in the campaign to abolish clawback, and I pay tribute to Ed Sweeney, Rory Murphy and Dai Davis, who have done much to secure the limited success that has been achieved so far. Our Government have done much for pensioners, the least well off and those on company schemes that might fail in the future. They have allocated a substantial sum of taxpayers' money to alleviate the plight of those pensioners who will not benefit from the new legislation.
	One further way to help hundreds of thousands of pensioners directly, without cost to the Exchequer, is to enact my Bill. It is a simple measure that is already practised successfully in the Republic of Ireland. It would help the lowest paid and part-time workers, and it could have a beneficial effect on benefit claims. It would stop future increases in the state pension being clawed back, and I commend it to the House.
	Question put and agreed to.
	Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Kerry Pollard, Mr. Tony McWalter, Linda Perham, Mr. Ernie Ross, Mr. David Chaytor, Jim Dobbin, Mr. Harold Best and Mr. Mike Wood.

Pensions (Clawbacks)

Mr. Kerry Pollard accordingly presented a Bill to make provision about pension clawbacks: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 15 October, and to be printed [Bill 145].

Iraq

[Relevant documents: Third Report from the Defence Committee, Session 2003–04, HC 57, Lessons of Iraq, and the Government's response thereto, First Special Report of that Session, HC 635. Minutes of Evidence taken before the International Development Committee on 14th July, HC 918-i, on Iraq: the role of humanitarian agencies in post-conflict situations.]
	Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Margaret Moran.]

Tony Blair: I shall start with the Butler report and then move on to a more general discussion of Iraq.
	I said at the outset last week that I fully accepted Lord Butler's conclusions, and there are now four things that I would like to announce as a result. First, there is an urgent need to fill the post of Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee and I have therefore asked Mr. William Ehrman, currently acting as a deputy chair, to take over the chairmanship of the JIC on an interim basis. He is currently director general for defence and intelligence in the Foreign Office, but he is expected to take up a further ambassadorial appointment next year. Meanwhile, the Cabinet Office will set about the task of making a permanent appointment, to take effect during 2005. That will be done fully in accordance with Lord Butler's criteria.
	Secondly, prior to the war, meetings were held with an informal group, including the Foreign and Defence Secretaries, the Chief of the Defence Staff, the head of the Secret Intelligence Service, the chairman of the JIC and my foreign policy adviser. In any future situation, such a group, which brought together the key players required to work on operational military planning and developing the diplomatic strategy, will operate formally as an ad hoc Cabinet Committee.
	Thirdly, the SIS has appointed a senior officer to work through the findings and recommendations of the Butler review, who will focus on the resourcing and organisation of the SIS's validation process, the relationship between the SIS and the JIC and its relationship with the Defence Intelligence Staff. We welcome the fact that the Intelligence and Security Committee will monitor progress in those areas.
	Fourthly, any future presentation of intelligence will separate the JIC assessment and the Government case and import any JIC caveats into it. We accept those conclusions and will act upon them.
	I want to move on now to the quite different point that by omitting the caveats, we set out to deceive people—[Interruption.]

Harry Cohen: Before my right hon. Friend moves on, will he pick up the points made by Brian Jones, the senior defence analyst, who said that he was not given the opportunity to see what was described as "compelling new evidence", which turned out to be extremely important? Presumably, as a result of that, my right hon. Friend was not given the chance to see Mr. Jones's objections. The responsibility for not showing the new evidence falls to the head of Defence Intelligence Staff and his deputy, who presumably did see it. That information has since been withdrawn from the dossier, so should not the head of those services and his deputy now resign?

Tony Blair: For the reasons that Lord Butler gives in his report, my hon. Friend is right in saying that the Defence Intelligence Staff should show such documents in future—and this may well be one of the changes that takes place. I would say to my hon. Friend that none of the disagreements that Dr. Jones had with specific items in the dossier actually came to the JIC or the Government. That is not to say that they were not important, but the fact is that they did not come before the Government. As a result of the changes that we intend to make, such a thing will not happen again in future.

Alan Beith: rose—

Alex Salmond: rose—

Tony Blair: I shall come to the right hon. Gentleman in a moment. Let me make one other point to my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Harry Cohen), which I will elaborate in greater detail later.
	The intelligence—I will take the House to the JIC assessments in a moment—really left little doubt about Saddam and weapons of mass destruction. That was the issue—[Interruption.] I am going to read the JIC assessments to the House. The intelligence left little doubt about Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction and made it absolutely clear that we were entirely entitled to go back to the UN and say that there was a continuing threat from Saddam Hussein.

Alan Beith: Dr. Jones minuted his concern on the matter that has just been referred to. The Intelligence and Security Committee recommended that there should be a clear and formal procedure to ensure that such a minute reached the Joint Intelligence Committee, which it did not do in this case. Will the Prime Minister go a little further than he did when he responded to the ISC by making it clear that there is such a procedure, that staff know what it is and that important notes of dissent must be seen by the JIC?

Tony Blair: Without presuming exactly what the SIS and DIS will come to as an understanding of what should go to the JIC, I would have thought that what the right hon. Gentleman said follows naturally from the Butler report. In those circumstances, it would be sensible for such notes of questioning—it is important to remember that the whole of the dossier was not questioned by any means; only a particular part of it—to go to the JIC.

Alex Salmond: rose—

Tony Blair: I am going to make some progress first.
	Much has been made of the fact that one JIC assessment said that intelligence was "sporadic and patchy". Let me just take the House to the JIC assessment on page 163 onwards of the Butler report. Let me say first of all that this was the JIC assessment of March 2002—in other words, six months before the dossier was actually produced, and there was, of course, more intelligence produced in the meantime. Let me quote the paragraph more fully. It states:
	"Intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction . . . and ballistic missile programmes is sporadic and patchy."
	It goes on to say:
	"Iraq is also well practised in the art of deception such as concealment and exaggeration. A complete picture of the various programmes is therefore difficult."
	That is true. It goes on, however, to say:
	"But it is clear that Iraq continues to pursue a policy of acquiring WMD and their delivery means."
	The key judgments on the following pages can be read. I shall not list them all. Some of the judgments were that Iraq retained up to 20 Al Hussein ballistic missiles, that it had begun development of medium-range ballistic missiles over 1,000 km, that it was pursuing a nuclear weapons programme, and so on and so forth in relation to chemical and biological weapons. Those are the key judgments that I received.
	If we move on to the 9 September JIC assessment, we see precisely the same. Again, criticism was made of the fact that I said that it was "beyond doubt" that Saddam Hussein had WMD and that the intelligence picture in the dossier was "extensive, detailed and authoritative". I simply refer people again to those key judgments. The first judgment was:
	"Iraq has a . . . chemical and biological weapons capability",
	and Saddam was prepared to use it. It goes on to detail in highly authoritative terms the various aspects of his weapons of destruction programme.
	The point that I want to make is this. That was the assessment that we were getting from the JIC. To hear much of the talk now, we might think that it was a startling assessment which people found odd at the time. One might have thought that people would say that it was curious, that they did not know about Saddam and that type of thing. Actually, that was the view of the entire international community, then expressed in resolution 1441. It followed 12 years of Saddam Hussein's WMD programmes, defiance of the UN, concealment, discovery and military action—in 1998, for example. No one doubted that he had intent, programmes and actual weapons and was therefore in breach of UN resolutions.

David Cameron: rose—

Lynne Jones: rose—

Tony Blair: I wanted to make some progress, but I will give way to my hon. Friend and come back to the hon. Gentleman later, if he will forgive me.

Lynne Jones: On the eve of war—not six months, nine months or 12 months before—the Attorney-General required the Prime Minister to be satisfied that there were strong factual grounds and hard evidence that Iraq was not in compliance with resolution 1441. Was the Prime Minister in no doubt that such strong factual grounds and hard evidence existed at the time? If so, why?

Tony Blair: Yes, I was, for the very reason that I have just given in citing the JIC assessments. I also have to say to my hon. Friend and other hon. Members that Lord Butler's report has been discussed as if he, Lord Butler, actually found that there was no WMD threat from Saddam Hussein at all, but he did not find that. I refer people to paragraph 41 of Lord Butler's conclusions, where it makes it clear that Saddam had the strategic intent and the illicit procurement of materials and was developing ballistic missiles in defiance of UN resolutions. In other words, it would have been entirely open to us, even on this evidence, to say that he was in breach of UN resolutions.

David Cameron: rose—

Clare Short: rose—

Tony Blair: I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman, then to my right hon. Friend, and then I am going to make some progress.

David Cameron: In view of what the Prime Minister has said, why does he think that Lord Butler concludes in paragraph 465 that it was
	"a serious weakness that the JIC's warnings on the limitations underlying its judgements were not made sufficiently clear in the dossier"?
	Does the Prime Minister take responsibility for that?

Tony Blair: Yes, of course I take responsibility for that, but I remind the hon. Gentleman that Lord Butler also finds that, in general, the dossier reflects the JIC assessments. I ask hon. Members to read those assessments, and to imagine for a moment that they are the Prime Minister receiving them—[Interruption.] I know that only a limited number of people will think in that way. On the basis of the assessments, it would be concluded, clearly, that Saddam Hussein was a WMD threat, and that he had intent, programmes and actual weapons. That much is clear from what is said in the assessments.
	I give way to my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short).

Clare Short: I am grateful to the Prime Minister, but the aim of the resolution was to secure disarmament, backed by the threat of force authorised by the UN. It was supported by the whole international community because there was a general sense that the regime was trying to acquire WMD and the means of their delivery, and that there was a threat that was so urgent that we could not allow Blix to complete his job. That divided the international community, with all the consequences that flowed from it. Where did my right hon. Friend get that information? Why was Blix not allowed enough time? Butler does not suggest that there was any reason for that judgment.

Tony Blair: I shall deal with that point, which is important. Some of the discussion has proceeded on the basis that we published the dossier on 24 September and went to war on 25 September. We did not: the dossier was not the basis on which we went to war, but the basis on which we went to the UN. That is what we did. As a result of going to the UN, we got resolution 1441—which, incidentally, accepted on behalf of the whole international community that Saddam Hussein was a WMD threat who had to be dealt with. People may ignore that now, but that is precisely what the resolution said.
	In resolution 1441, we said that there had to be full compliance—I think that the word "unconditional" was used—with the UN inspectors. The plain fact is, there was no such compliance. To answer my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood directly, I agree that it would have been better to let the inspectors have more time, provided that we had a UN resolution for them to operate under which laid down a clear ultimatum to Saddam that action would follow if he did not comply with the benchmarks that I agreed with Hans Blix at the time. However, as I think I explained to my right hon. Friend at the time, the problem was that some other countries made it clear that they would not accept any resolution containing an ultimatum.
	There is no way that Saddam would ever have allowed the inspectors back in without the troops down there. The House should recall that he refused to have inspectors in Iraq for four years, and only let them in because the troops were down there. We knew that he was not complying properly with the UN resolutions. How did we know that? Because that is what the UN inspectors told us in their reports to the UN.
	I therefore pose this question: without an ultimatum that says, "Here is what you have to do. If you do not do it, action will follow", does anyone seriously think that Saddam would have complied? I strove hard to secure a second resolution, and thought that we could have got it. I tried to set the right benchmarks. I said to the Americans at the time, "We need more time to let Blix do his work, provided that there is an ultimatum." If we had had no ultimatum, the result would have been simply a continuation of what we had been doing for 12 years. That is, we would have allowed Saddam a certain amount of leeway, he would have made a few concessions and then carried on with his original intentions.

Mike Hancock: rose—

Clare Short: Will my right hon. Friend give way again on that point?

Tony Blair: I will give way again to my right hon. Friend, as it is important to deal with the point that she is making.

Clare Short: In his book, Dr. Blix makes it absolutely clear that the majority of the Security Council, including the non-permanent members and France, Germany and Russia, were willing to have benchmarks and a deadline, and to say that inspections should not continue. However, they were not willing to accept a resolution that meant that Britain and the US would decide whether that resolution had been adhered to. My right hon. Friend threw away the possibility of united international action on the request for automaticity. That is the reality of the situation.

Tony Blair: I am always a little worried by what people say in books after the event, as opposed to what actually happened at the time. I have no doubt that I will repeat that on many occasions in the future. However, one thing that my right hon. Friend is saying is simply wrong. France would not accept any ultimatum. That was said to me on the telephone, and it was made clear publicly.
	I think that I am right in saying that France did not agree the benchmarks at the time, but let us suppose that we had got over that problem. I agree that, with negotiation, we might have succeeded in securing the benchmarks. Yes, they might have contained a timeline for Blix to carry on his work, but without an ultimatum there was no real chance for people to believe that Saddam would have acceded to our demands.
	I think that it would be instructive for people to go back and read the debate of 18 March 2003. That debate was not about the dossier, which was barely mentioned, but about the consequences of resolution 1441. At the time of the debate, we knew that Saddam was not complying with that resolution properly, and that we could not secure another resolution with an ultimatum in it. So what were we to do? We could have backed away—or we could have decided to make sure, this time, that Saddam was incapable in the future of developing WMD, as he had every intention of doing. I still think that we made the right decision.

Mike Hancock: Will the Prime Minister give way?

Malcolm Savidge: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Tony Blair: I will give way to the hon. Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Hancock), and then to my hon. Friend. Then I must make some progress, or no one else will have a chance to speak.

Mike Hancock: I am grateful to the Prime Minister, who has been extraordinarily generous in giving way. Will he confirm that, between the dossier's publication and this country's entry into conflict, he was receiving ongoing intelligence assessments, on much of which there could be no collaboration? Did any senior member of the British intelligence service advise the Prime Minister that he should be cautious about the interpretation that he placed on the evidence of the intelligence community, in this country and the US?

Tony Blair: The JIC assessments are set out in Butler. However, the UN resolution accepted as a fact that Saddam was a WMD threat. Once that was secured, the question was whether we would enforce the UN resolutions, or not. Our intelligence community—like the UN and, as far as I am aware, most intelligence services in the world—certainly believed that Saddam had WMD weapons, capability and intent.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Tony Blair: I said that I would give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Savidge), but then I must make progress. I am sorry about that.

Malcolm Savidge: I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way. Am I not correct in thinking that Dr. Blix communicated to the Prime Minister the fact that the inspectors believed that they were getting a far greater degree of co-operation than ever before? Admittedly that was under the pressure of a military threat, but does that not mean that it could have been worth giving the inspectors time to complete their job and to prove what we have now found?

Tony Blair: At some point I may go into all the detailed conversations that I had with Dr. Blix. However, the basic position was that the inspectors told me that there was some co-operation, but that there was not full co-operation. The problem is that that is precisely what the Iraqi regime had offered before. If one goes back over the 12 years of Saddam Hussein and of the whole saga with the UN, one finds that it was not the case that he never co-operated with the inspectors. From time to time he would co-operate, usually when there was a threat of military action.
	I remember that it was in February 1998 that we first gave Saddam a strong and clear indication that military action would follow if he did not co-operate. As a result, he started to co-operate a bit more, and there was an elaborate dance throughout the rest of the year. Finally, in December 1998, the inspectors were not able to get access to some of the places that they wanted to see. They left, and effectively we took military action to try and do what we could to deal with the threat that was posed.
	Saddam Hussein, however, was never prepared to co-operate fully—and I think that the reasons for that are to be found in the Butler report. Whatever the truth in respect of readily deployable weapons was, part of the trouble is that people have gone to the opposite extreme. They say that there was nothing there at all and that there was no threat. That that was not the case is absolutely clear, and some of the intelligence remains entirely valid. It was absolutely clear that he had every intention of carrying on developing those weapons, that he was procuring materials to do so and—for example, in respect of ballistic missiles—he was going way beyond what was permitted by the United Nations.
	I return to the central point. There was little doubt about the breach of UN resolutions, and in the debate on 18 March 2003 the House rightly took the view that there was no way that he would co-operate fully, and therefore that we had to take military action.

Michael Howard: The Prime Minister appears to be leaving the question of what he told the country about the intelligence. He has referred, briefly, to the Joint Intelligence Committee assessments. They all make it clear, in terms, that the intelligence on which they were based was sporadic, patchy, little and limited. Why did the Prime Minister say that the intelligence was extensive, detailed and authoritative?

Tony Blair: The right hon. and learned Gentleman must have been asleep earlier in the debate, for which I apologise. The phrase "sporadic and patchy" appeared in the assessment dated 15 March 2002. He keeps trying to suggest that it appeared in the later assessment: it did not. It was in the earlier assessment. In the assessment of 9 September 2002, it does say that the intelligence remains limited, but the JIC then goes on to make its judgments. If necessary, I shall read them all out to the House—[Hon. Members: "Yes."] All right.
	The first states:
	"Iraq has a chemical and biological weapons capability and Saddam is prepared to use it."
	It continues:
	"Faced with the likelihood of military defeat and being removed from power, Saddam is unlikely to be deterred from using chemical and biological weapons by any diplomatic or military means."
	I am going on and on—[Hon. Members: "More."] Let me give two other judgments that are relevant:
	"we judge that . . . Iraq currently has available, either from pre Gulf War stocks or more recent production, a number of biological warfare . . . and chemical warfare . . . agents and weapons",
	and that
	"even if stocks of chemical and biological weapons are limited, they would allow for focused strikes against key military targets or for strategic purposes (such as a strike against Israel or Kuwait)".
	The judgment then details that point over many pages.
	I must say to the right hon. and learned Gentleman that it is absurd to suggest that anyone, given that JIC assessment, would have said, "Saddam Hussein? Weapons of mass destruction? I don't think that's much of a problem."

Michael Howard: The Prime Minister knows perfectly well that that is not what I was suggesting. He has read out the conclusions of the assessments: I am asking about the nature of the intelligence on which those conclusions were based. The assessments were themselves stated to be on the basis of intelligence that was sporadic and patchy, little and limited. The Prime Minister told the country that the basis of the intelligence
	"is extensive, detailed and authoritative."—[Official Report, 24 September 2002; Vol. 390, c. 3.]
	That was wrong. Why did he say that to the country?

Tony Blair: I do not accept that that was wrong. I do not want to read it all over again, so—even better—I shall read what the right hon. and learned Gentleman said—[Interruption.] Well, I have to say to Opposition Members that the judgments of the committee are the key things. If it judged that Iraq had a WMD capability and actual weapons, what Prime Minister would have said, "That may be what the committee judges and concludes, but I am going to come to a different conclusion"? Imagine what would have happened afterwards had the threat materialised.
	I raise what the right hon. and learned Gentleman said because in the past few days he has tried to suggest that somehow the Conservatives—no, that is unfair, because many Opposition Members voted for the war on the basis that they did, and still support the war. I understand that, so I shall deal specifically with the right hon. and learned Gentleman. I do not often read the Kentish Express, but on this occasion I have done so. On the day of the debate on the war, he said:
	"Why is Saddam Hussein a threat to us here in the United Kingdom? Four years ago Iraq had tons of anthrax and the nerve agent VX. These deadly materials are easily transported and easily hidden. There has been no convincing explanation as to what has happened to them."
	He did not say that on the basis of the intelligence in the dossier: it was the same reason we had supported action the whole time.
	I come to what the right hon. and learned Gentleman said after the war. I read the other day some of the things that he said to the News Corporation in March this year—after the Hutton report and after all the issues had been raised. I have managed to find out a little bit more about that speech. He said:
	"We must remember that it was not the overthrow of Saddam that spawned terrorism and instability. Quite the reverse. It was the failure of the West to act decisively again and again in the late 1990s, in the face of threats and provocation, that emboldened the terrorists and the rogue states. That failure must never be repeated . . . The war against Iraq was necessary. It was just. It was, indeed, arguably overdue. And, let us not forget, it was overwhelmingly successful—a judgement which subsequent difficulties do not change."
	He continued:
	"Of course . . . Iraq has become the frontline in the War against Terror . . . I have no doubt that if the West maintains its resolution, Iraq will be a much better place than it was under Saddam."
	[Interruption.] I shall tell the right hon. and learned Gentleman what my point is. It is that we will not maintain our resolution by pretending that we would not have voted for the motion that saw us go to war. It is absurd to suggest that he or the shadow Foreign Secretary were in two minds about Iraq, were not quite sure, sat around scratching their heads wondering whether it was a threat or not, and were then persuaded by me that it was. To be fair, the previous Leader of the Opposition warned, in my view rightly, about the threat of Saddam Hussein long before I did.
	It is time the right hon. and learned Gentleman realised that shabby opportunism is not the solution to his problem: it is his problem. The public will respect people who were honestly for the war and they will respect people who were honestly against the war: they will not respect a politician who says that he is for and against the war in the same newspaper article.

Jonathan Sayeed: rose—

Julian Lewis: rose—

Tony Blair: I give way to the hon. Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis).

Julian Lewis: I am one of those who supported the war before, during and after it, and I continue to do so. What I do not support is the discrediting of our intelligence services by the exaggeration of the intelligence that was available. Will the Prime Minister tell the House why GCHQ, our largest intelligence agency, is barely mentioned in the Butler report? Was there any signals intelligence and, if so, what was it and why was it not mentioned in the report?

Tony Blair: I cannot answer that last question, but I shall find the answer and tell the hon. Gentleman. It is unfair to say that of our intelligence services. They do a fantastic job for this country and the judgments that they made were thoroughly justified on the basis of the intelligence at the time. The hon. Gentleman rightly and fairly said that he would still support the war. So would I, because not all the intelligence has turned out to be wrong. If what Lord Butler says in paragraph 41 is correct, there is ample justification in the breaches of UN resolutions. In the light of what we know, is it really credibly claimed that it would have been better to leave Saddam Hussein in power in Iraq in circumstances in which—as we know perfectly well—he had every intention of carrying on with his WMD ambitions?

Jonathan Sayeed: rose—

John Bercow: rose—

Tony Blair: I shall give way to the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow).

John Bercow: Given the real statesmanship that the Prime Minister showed in March last year in recognising the need to combat Saddam and in prosecuting a necessary war—which is to his enormous and lasting credit—is he prepared to concede that he made any errors?

Tony Blair: Of course, which is why I said, at the very beginning, these are the things the Butler report identified that we should change. I fully accept those things. What I do not accept is that it was a mistake to go to war. It was the right thing to do and I still believe it was the right thing to do.
	As for Iraq itself, let us agree on this: our armed forces have been superb. They fought the war brilliantly and they are conducting the peace brilliantly. Today, we should thank not only them but their families, who have supported them through these long months.
	Never let us forget what Iraq was: a brutalised state, run by a mixture of terror and execution. Never let us forget either that, for all the difficulties, Iraq now has the prospect of progress. It is true that the terrorism continues. Incidentally, occasionally reports of civilian casualties read as though they were somehow caused by the coalition, but as far as I am aware the civilians who have died in Iraq in the past year have been overwhelmingly the victims of terrorist attacks. The terrorism is to an increasing degree, according to the Iraqi Government, the work of outside terrorists.
	I draw the House's attention to paragraph 483 of Lord Butler's report, which I do not think got much publicity on the day, where he describes not active co-operation between al-Qaeda and Saddam's regime, but links between al-Qaeda and Iraqi officials, as well as the fact that prior to Saddam falling, al-Zarqawi moved into Baghdad and set up sleeper cells with the possibility, as we now know, of conducting terrorist attacks. That much of the intelligence has been all too accurate.

Alan Beith: To be activated during US occupation?

Tony Blair: Before the United States went to Iraq.
	We know that Iraq's curse is terrorism and the battle for security, but given some of the coverage about what is happening in Iraq at present, we should also recognise that the blessings from the fall of Saddam are indeed great. The money from Iraq's oil, expected to be about $18 billion a year, now goes to help Iraq and not Saddam and his family and his WMD ambitions. There is a proper currency. According to the International Monetary Fund, the economy will grow this year by 33 per cent. Public sector salaries have trebled in many cases. The schools and hospitals are open, and are now not just for Ba'ath party members. There are free media.
	It is also worth pointing out what our troops are managing to achieve in Basra. In Basra province alone, there will be about 35 local elections over the coming weeks. The first, in az-Zubayr last week, resulted in the election of three women to the council; that was a proper, democratic election.
	A proper courts system is being introduced. Six Iraqi Ministers are women and one in four of the delegates to the Assembly next year will be female. There is freedom of worship. Shi'as formerly prevented from visiting holy shrines are now able to do so.
	None of that means that Iraq will be built easily; of course it will take time, as it has done for any country in similar circumstances over the years. Today, however, Iraq at least has a future within its grasp, and although it is correct that the liberation of Iraq from Saddam was not the legal case for war, it was, as I said frequently at the time—indeed, most notably in the debate on 18 March—why we should go to war with a clear conscience and a strong heart. Removing Saddam was not a war crime; it was an act of liberation for the Iraqi people.

Jonathan Sayeed: rose—

Robert Marshall-Andrews: Will the Prime Minister give way?

Tony Blair: No.

Robert Marshall-Andrews: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Prime Minister is not giving way.

Tony Blair: Of course, in the short term, the problem of security and of cleaning up the utterly degraded country that was Saddam's Iraq is a huge challenge, but one thing that people have missed is that the very scale of the challenge says an immense amount about the scale of Saddam's misrule and the threat he posed. Such a country ruled by such a tyrant should never be allowed anywhere near weapons of mass destruction. Any risk of his developing or using them was a risk never worth taking, and in the conflict today I ask the House how there can be any scintilla of hesitation about which side—

Robert Marshall-Andrews: Will the Prime Minister give way?

Mr. Speaker: Order—

Robert Marshall-Andrews: rose—

Tony Blair: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Prime Minister should be seated. I have already told the hon. and learned Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews) that the Prime Minister is not giving way.

Robert Marshall-Andrews: I am grateful, Mr. Speaker.

Tony Blair: That makes two of us.
	I repeat that there should be no scintilla of hesitation about which side we should be on.

Alice Mahon: Will the Prime Minister give way?

Tony Blair: No, I am sorry. I am sure that other people want to speak in the debate.
	On one side are assorted former Saddam gangsters, religious extremists and terrorists; on the other are the Iraqi people, the outside coalition and the United Nations. To me, the interesting thing is that the terrorists know what is at stake. Why do people think al-Qaeda is in Iraq? Why are al-Zarqawi and Ansar al-Islam there? I believe they are there because they know it is the front line in the war against terrorism today, and they know that for the same reason as we should know it: if they succeed, Iraq cannot prove to the world that democracy is for the middle east, too, and that religious tolerance is what most Muslims, as well as Christians, want. It cannot show that Arab and westerner can live in harmony. But the terrorists know also that, if they fail and Iraq succeeds, Iraq will hold out hope not just to millions of Iraqis but throughout the region and the wider middle east.
	So whether we are for the war or against it—or even somewhere in between—today's struggle is one in which no one should be neutral. That is why the new Iraqi Government and our British troops and British civil and public servants, doing their job in Iraq alongside our allies from the United States and elsewhere, deserve our total support.

Kenneth Clarke: Will the Prime Minister give way?

Tony Blair: No, I am sorry.
	If people read the letter from Dr. Allawi, published only the other day, they will see that he set out the authentic voice of Iraq and its future—what Iraq can now become.
	Whatever mistakes have been made, my view is: let us rejoice that Iraq can indeed have such—[Interruption.] Yes, let us be pleased that Iraq is liberated and can have such a future and let us now work together, whatever the disagreements of the past, to help it secure that future.

Michael Howard: There is no more awesome responsibility for a Prime Minister than the decision to take the country to war, and that is what we are debating today. As we discuss these issues, I join the Prime Minister in paying tribute to the thousands of British servicemen and women who still face the daily challenge of bringing peace to Iraq. We are indeed all enormously proud of them and of their families. We remember those from our country, and from others, who were killed or injured, including the very many Iraqis who have suffered. It is part of our responsibility to ensure that those sacrifices were not made in vain.
	There are three issues before the House this afternoon: first, the justification for the war; secondly, what happened after the war; and thirdly, what the country was told before the war.
	On the justification for the war, there are many areas of agreement between the Prime Minister and me. We both believe it was the right thing to do. Saddam Hussein was a real threat to peace in the region. He had indeed acquired and used weapons of mass destruction in the past and he had the potential to do so in the future. He had flouted a whole series of United Nations Security Council resolutions.
	Many people in the House and in our country did not support the war. I respect their sincerely held view but ultimately I do not agree with them.

Kevin Brennan: Many of us who voted against the war certainly respect the views and good faith of those who voted in favour of it, but what are we supposed to make of someone who says he was, and still is, in favour of the war, yet wishes he had voted against it?

Michael Howard: Let me remind the hon. Gentleman that he voted against the motion. Let me remind him and the House of what the motion before the House on 18 March said—[Interruption.] I voted for the motion, but as it may be some time since hon. Members read it, let me remind them of what it says. That motion began by recognising that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles posed a threat to international peace. It went on to support the Government's decision to use all means necessary to ensure the disarmament of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Now, we know that those weapons were not there. The Prime Minister said so last week. So of course it is the case that, had I known then what I know now, I would not have been able to vote for that motion.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Prime Minister got a proper hearing. Allow the Leader of the Opposition to get a hearing.

Michael Howard: I am replying to the point raised by the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Kevin Brennan). I do not see how any hon. Member, had they known then what we know now, could have voted for that motion. I do not see how the Prime Minister could have voted for that motion. That does not mean that I do not think that the war was justified—I do, as I have repeatedly made it clear.

Huw Irranca-Davies: I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for giving way. I commend the Leader of the Opposition for what he said on 19 March this year:
	"Whatever my disagreements with Tony Blair, any government that I lead will not flinch in its determination to win the War against Terror, wherever it has to be fought."
	I commend him for saying that, but the word "flinch" is interesting for those who study linguistics. Its origins are French, and it can be used in the sense of to slink or to sneak away.

Michael Howard: I stand by entirely what I said on 19 March. Indeed, I would not flinch, but I happen to think that the reasons why we vote in the House are of some importance. I happen to think that the wording of the motions on which we vote are of importance. That is why I have said what I have said about the motion that was before the House on 18 March.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Please allow the Leader of the Opposition to speak. Is he giving way to an hon. Member?

Michael Howard: I give way to the hon. Member for Watford (Claire Ward).

Claire Ward: If the right hon. and learned Gentleman believed at the time that he voted for the war that Saddam Hussein was a threat, had used weapons of mass destruction against his own people and, given any opportunity, would do so again, why has he changed his view? Is it simply because the bandwagon of opportunism came along and he jumped on board?

Michael Howard: The hon. Lady ought to look at what the motion that I voted for said. That is the point that I am raising.

Jonathan Sayeed: I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for giving way. He knows that many supported the war in the belief that there was an imminent threat from missiles carrying weapons of mass destruction and that articles appeared in the Standard and The Sun supporting that interpretation. Indeed, The Sun headline of 25 September read, "Brits 45 minutes from doom." So, first, does my right hon. and learned Friend know whether anyone associated with the Government briefed the Standard or The Sun on that interpretation of the dossier, and secondly, as senior Ministers knew that such an assertion was wrong before the debate on 18 March that authorised war, should not a Minister have come to the Commons and explained that that assertion was wrong?

Michael Howard: I am coming to the 45-minute claim later on in my speech.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Far too many hon. Members are standing. Allow the Leader of the Opposition to continue with his speech.

Michael Howard: I shall give way once more and then I must make progress.

Kali Mountford: I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for giving way, but on the subject of the motion voted on in the House, does he accept that many hon. Members had a wide range of views on why we voted for war? On his view on WMD, does he accept that Butler himself said that it would be foolish to assume now that WMD do not exist?

Michael Howard: Butler says that, but very few people—[Interruption.] Well, does the hon. Lady seriously think that weapons of mass destruction will still be found in Iraq? That is the question. Does the Prime Minister still think that weapons of mass destruction are still likely to be found in Iraq? Of course not. That is why I say that, if we had known then what we know now, we would not have been able to vote for the motion that was before the House on 18 March. I am now going to make progress. [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. I call for order once again. I may ask the hon. Member for Doncaster, North (Mr. Hughes) to leave the Chamber. In fact, I might demand that he do so.

Michael Howard: I have acknowledged that there are many people who do not share my view that the war was justified, but despite our differences, I think that most hon. Members agree that the people of Iraq—I agree with the Prime Minister—are far better off now that Saddam Hussein has gone. We know that we must now see this through, and the prize of a stable and sustainable Iraq is well worth striving for. Like the Prime Minister, I believe, too, that while enormous challenges remain, real progress has been made in Iraq, but we must all acknowledge that, since the overthrow of Saddam, mistakes have been made and some of them have been serious.
	One of the most serious mistakes was the failure to prepare for the aftermath of the war. Six months before the war even began, we were pressing the Government to draw up a plan for post-war Iraq. Everyone knows that there was no such plan. The Iraqi army and police were disbanded with nothing to take their place; borders were not made secure; and there was a collapse of law and order in Baghdad. No one is suggesting that there were easy answers to those very difficult problems, but it would have been less difficult if there had been a plan.

Clare Short: I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for giving way. I think that it is now a matter of record that there was a detailed plan in the State Department—very detailed, lengthy and considered—but it was swept to one side when responsibility was given to the Pentagon, which had made insufficient preparation. That is what really happened.

Michael Howard: I quite understand the basis on which the right hon. Lady says what she says. It is certainly true that the responsibility for the failure to draw up a plan does not rest with the British Government alone, but in the run-up to the war, the British Government were in a position of great strength. We were by a long way the second largest contingent in the coalition forces. We had stood shoulder to shoulder with the United States. We were in a position to make our voice heard. We were in a position to insist, in the circumstances described by the right hon. Lady, that a proper post-war plan was prepared and put into action. We should have done so, but we did not. Had we done so, I believe that at least some of the difficulties that have arisen in Iraq since the fall of Baghdad could have been avoided.

Tony Baldry: Has my right hon. and learned Friend seen the evidence of Sir Jeremy Greenstock, who says:
	"with hindsight the proper preparations were not made for what evolved on the ground in Iraq . . . relative deficiency in analysis and prediction of what was going to happen created effects in the immediate post-conflict period which allowed a much worse security situation to evolve than should have been the case"?
	Of course, Sir Jeremy was, at the material time, our ambassador to the United Nations.

Michael Howard: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for reminding me of that. He is, of course, quite right and so was Sir Jeremy Greenstock.
	Few of us would doubt that the most appalling and deeply damaging thing that has happened since the fall of Baghdad was the abuse of prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison. It was deeply humiliating for the victims. It has done long-lasting damage to the reputation of the west and it has gravely undermined our moral authority. The circumstances surrounding the timing and extent of the British Government's knowledge of what had gone on are covered in confusion. Just over two months ago, when the story broke, the Prime Minister assured the House that neither he nor his Ministers were aware of those allegations. [Interruption.] Labour Members may not be interested in what went on in Abu Ghraib prison, but their constituents will be and those Members should be. The assurance that the Prime Minister gave was wrong. We now know that the Minister responsible at the Foreign Office was told about the allegations nearly two months earlier at a meeting with the president of the Red Cross, so the Foreign Office Minister knew but the Prime Minister did not know and was not told. Why not?
	That was not the only issue that the Prime Minister did not know about. He did not know that vital evidence was kept from Lord Hutton's inquiry. In February, he assured the House:
	"Everything that was relevant to the inquiry was made available to Lord Hutton . . . I do not believe that there is anything that we concealed from that inquiry".—[Official Report, 4 February 2004; Vol. 417, c. 768.]
	He said twice that Lord Hutton saw all the intelligence there was to see on the 45-minute claim. The Butler report makes it clear that those statements were not correct.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Michael Howard: I want to finish this point.
	We now know as a result of the Butler report that two crucial intelligence reports on chemical and biological weapons, to which the 45-minute claim related, had been withdrawn in July 2003. MI6 knew that, the Joint Intelligence Committee knew it, but Lord Hutton was not told. The Intelligence and Security Committee was not told and, apparently, the Prime Minister did not know. Why not?

Barry Sheerman: In retrospect, when the right hon. and learned Gentleman thinks about the intelligence, does he think about what Lord Butler said—that the intelligence services were totally under-resourced, that that affected their performance and that under-resourcing went back to when he was a member of the Cabinet in 1995, when the Conservative Administration cut the intelligence services' budget by 25 per cent?

Michael Howard: I am afraid that the Government whom the hon. Gentleman supports have been in power for seven years. If there were anything that needed to be put right, they have had ample time to put it right. I do not see how that excuses the failure to tell Lord Hutton's inquiry and the Intelligence and Security Committee about the fact that the intelligence had been withdrawn, which we now know from the Butler report.

Gordon Prentice: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

Michael Howard: No; I want to make some progress.
	MI6 knew that the intelligence had been withdrawn. The Joint Intelligence Committee knew that the intelligence had been withdrawn, but Lord Hutton was not told. The Intelligence and Security Committee was not told and again, apparently, the Prime Minister did not know. Why not?
	Nor did the Prime Minister know that the 45-minute claim only referred to battlefield weapons and not to long-range missiles, a fact that we only discovered thanks to careful questioning by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, South (Richard Ottaway). The Prime Minister was forced to admit then that, unlike the Secretary of State for Defence, he did not know and had not been told. Why not? Why was it that the Prime Minister did not know and was not told any of those vital things?
	Part of the reason for that serial ignorance stems from the way in which the Prime Minister runs things. On that issue, the criticisms made by the Butler committee are damning. As Lord Butler says, important decisions should be taken after "informed, collective political judgment". Lord Butler also points out that
	"without papers circulated in advance it remains possible, but it is obviously much more difficult, for members of the Cabinet to bring their political judgment and experience to bear on the major decisions for which the Cabinet as a whole must carry responsibility".
	Judging from comments by the right hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) last week, when papers were prepared Cabinet Ministers were not even shown them. As he told the "Today" programme,
	"I'm astonished to learn from the Butler Report that there were papers prepared for us but never circulated to us and I would like to know why".
	In the last paragraph of his report, Lord Butler concluded that
	"the informality and circumscribed character of the Government's procedures . . . reduce the scope for informed, collective political judgment",
	or, in plain English, procedures in Downing street are such a shambles that proper decision making is impossible.
	We should be clear about the implications of all this. This way of decision taking is not accidental. It is not a coincidence. It is the result of a deliberate set of decisions by a Prime Minister who thinks that he does not need, and certainly does not want, informed collective political judgment.

Mike Gapes: I refer the right hon. and learned Gentleman to paragraph 611 of the conclusions of Lord Butler's report, which states:
	"We do not suggest that there is or should be an ideal or unchangeable system of collective Government, still less that procedures are in aggregate any less effective now than in earlier times."
	Does he agree?

Michael Howard: I think that if the hon. Gentleman reads on and comes to the last paragraph of the recommendations, he will find that the picture presented is somewhat different.
	The consequences of all this are there for us all to see. That leads to the third issue at stake today: what the country was told in the run-up to the war. Last week, I set out in the House the contrast between the intelligence available to the Prime Minister and what he told the country. I did so in the context of what he said on 25 January:
	"the issue vis-à-vis my integrity is: did we receive the intelligence and was it properly relayed to people?"
	The intelligence he received was seriously flawed. Lord Butler made serious criticisms of the validation process of MI6. It is vital that the weaknesses that he identified are fully remedied. We shall study the decisions that the Prime Minister announced in his remarks earlier and see what assessment to make of the extent to which they are likely to remedy those weaknesses.
	The other issue vis à vis the Prime Minister's integrity, in his own words, is: was the intelligence "properly relayed to people"? In March 2002, as has been pointed out, the Joint Intelligence Committee said that the intelligence was "sporadic and patchy". In August that year, the Joint Intelligence Committee said that it had "little intelligence". In September, it said that the intelligence was "limited", yet on 24 September 2002 the Prime Minister told the House that the picture painted by the intelligence services was "extensive, detailed and authoritative".
	The Prime Minister read out from the conclusions of the reports. The question is: what was the intelligence basis for those conclusions? Was the intelligence on which those conclusions were based patchy, sporadic, limited and little, or was it, as he told the country, "extensive, detailed and authoritative"? There is an enormous difference between the two and he has yet to explain, and he certainly did not explain this afternoon, the basis for his statement. Nowhere in the reports of the Joint Intelligence Committee was there any basis for the Prime Minister's assertion that the intelligence was "extensive, detailed and authoritative".

Several hon. Members: rose—

Michael Howard: I have given way very generously and I want—

Several hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The right hon. and learned Gentleman is not giving way.

Michael Howard: That is why the Prime Minister's credibility is at stake today. As I said last week, I hope that Britain will not face another war in the foreseeable future but, if we do, and the Prime Minister identified the threat, the question remains: would anyone believe him?

Several hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Leader of the Opposition has said that he is not giving way.

Michael Howard: We all know now that, when it came to the Iraq war, the qualified judgments of the intelligence services became the unqualified certainties of the Prime Minister. Last week, I asked the Prime Minister to explain exactly why. He studiously failed to answer that question and he has refused to answer it again today. I think that this House and the country deserve an answer. We are entitled to know why the Prime Minister said what he did.
	The Prime Minister says that he accepts full personal responsibility for the way in which the issue was presented and for any errors that were made, but what does that actually mean? He still has not told us what errors he thinks he has made. He has not told us why he made them, and he has not told us what steps he has taken to ensure that they will not happen again. Without answers to those vital questions, how can this House be sure that those lessons will be learned and that the things that went wrong will be put right?

Patrick Cormack: I am most grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend for giving way. Is he saying to the House that he believes that he and I, and those who voted as we did on 18 March 2003, were deliberately deceived?

Michael Howard: I will answer my hon. Friend. I think that the Prime Minister thought throughout that he was acting in the best interests of the country. I have absolutely no doubt about that, but what he told us about the basis for the intelligence was different from what the intelligence told him. Before I can answer my hon. Friend's question, I want to know how that difference came about and why it came about. When the Prime Minister has answered that question—I have put it to him several times and he has yet to answer it—I will be able to answer the question put by my hon. Friend.
	It is now clear that, in many ways, the intelligence services got it wrong, but their assessments included serious caveats, qualifications and cautions. When presenting his case to the country, the Prime Minister chose to leave out those caveats, qualifications and cautions, and as a result the country was given a misleading impression of what the intelligence services had said. So why will he not just come clean? Why will he not tell us why he did it? Why will he not just give the country the facts?
	The Prime Minister once said that he was a pretty straight kind of guy, but he has not been straight with the British people today. Why is it that, for this Prime Minister, sorry seems to be the hardest word?

Charles Kennedy: The immediate background to both the Butler report and today's debate remains a war that we did not believe was necessary, that we could not support and that we believe has gone on to do lasting international damage to our country's interests. That is our fundamental starting point, however deep, but none the less principled, the disagreements may be with the Government.
	Whatever our respective viewpoints were about this war, none of us can ever erase the fact that the lives of brave and loyal British personnel and civilians have been lost—and as we have seen again in the past day or two they continue to be lost, along with the lives of countless and, perhaps most disgracefully of all, uncounted, Iraqi civilians. That legacy will never be forgotten.
	Our principal point of disagreement and departure from the Government's position over the war was clear from the outset, and remains clear. Our issue is: were the political judgments involved the correct ones and were we led into the war on what constituted a false prospectus? We believe that those all-important political judgments were the wrong judgments and that the case for war was fatally flawed. The justifications that were presented at the time, and the way in which they were presented, are the fundamental point of dispute. The central core is that issue of political judgment, and in the aftermath of the war we have all witnessed a profound loss of public trust in both the Prime Minister and his Government, very largely as a result.
	In so many respects, Lord Butler's report has raised as many questions as it has answered. I do not find that highly surprising, given the very specific, tightly drawn remit that was set for Lord Butler by the Prime Minister. The fact that the Prime Minister specifically excluded a proper public assessment of those political judgments led me and colleagues to conclude that we should not participate in the work of the report. Indeed, the Prime Minister put it to me across the Floor of the House when he announced the setting up of the Butler inquiry that
	"to subcontract to some committee the issue of whether it was right or wrong to go to war is not merely wrong: ultimately it is profoundly undemocratic."—[Official Report, 4 February 2004; Vol. 417, c. 755.]
	In the absence of Butler and his colleagues being able to make such an assessment, the only outlet for public judgment thus far has been the ballot box. Both last month and in the two parliamentary by-elections last week, people have given their answers. Their verdicts must to a significant extent—although not exclusively—contain a public reflection on the merits of the war.
	In the run-up to the war, I repeatedly asked the Prime Minister at Question Time what, if any, circumstances would lead him into support for, or indeed opposition to, a US-led invasion of Iraq that did not have the explicit sanction and mandate of the United Nations. As hon. Members of all parties will recall, he refused ever to address that question directly. Looking back over the events of the past 18 months and the various reports, including the Butler report, that the events have spawned, given the immense and unprecedented lengths to which the Government went to try to win over an understandably worried public, I find it hard to believe that the die for the war had not been cast a considerable time before.

George Foulkes: Does the leader of the Liberal party agree that failure to take action against dictators should come under equal scrutiny? Does he agree that if we had failed to take action, Saddam Hussein would still be there, murdering and killing?

Charles Kennedy: I draw the right hon. Gentleman's attention to the words of his leader on 25 February 2003 in the House of Commons. The Prime Minister spoke of the very regime to which the right hon. Gentleman referred and said of Saddam:
	"I detest his regime—I hope most people do—but even now, he could save it by complying with the UN's demand."—[Official Report, 25 February 2003; Vol. 400, c. 124.]
	That was the Prime Minister's and the Government's position. Saddam Hussein could have remained in place, so all this post-event moral justification does not square with what they were saying beforehand.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Charles Kennedy: I shall leave Labour Members to square their own consciences with that of the Prime Minister.
	We know from the revealing account given by the distinguished American journalist, Bob Woodward, that for the Bush Administration, the desirability of regime change in Iraq had been in place and much favoured since President Bush took office, so my first question to the Prime Minister is quite simply this: did he advise President Bush privately—long before the United Nations route was formally abandoned—that if the President decided to prosecute an invasion of Iraq, the British would be in active military support, come what may? If he did advise the President to that effect, when did such an exchange take place? That was fundamentally important at the time, and remains so to this day.
	At the time, the Prime Minister said that he reached the final conclusion that war had become inevitable only the weekend before the hostilities commenced.

Jack Straw: That is true.

Charles Kennedy: The Foreign Secretary says that that is true and I do not doubt him. However, surely the extraordinary and prolonged build-up on all fronts over many months—militarily and diplomatically—must suggest that other considerations were also in mind. Indeed, the Ministry of Defence, with its duty to the Government of the day, in addition to its duty to serving personnel, must calculate for all possible contingencies. It would be illogical, apart from anything else, to suppose that it did not have at the back of its mind the fact that the political die might well have been cast.
	The second issue that arises in that context, as the Government moved towards preparing and publishing the dossier on weapons of mass destruction, is the blurring of roles, acknowledged by Butler, that took place between principal advisers to the Prime Minister and the then chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, the person who had assumed ownership of the report's contents. As Lord Butler observed, assessment and advocacy became conflated as a result. That should never have happened and, given what the Prime Minister said at the beginning of his speech, one assumes that it will never happen again, either under the new interim chair of the JIC or, indeed, under any of his longer-term successors. I welcome that acknowledgment from the Prime Minister.
	Butler goes on to say that all of that was shot through and compounded by the informality of style that is an apparent hallmark of the Prime Minister. That style may have served him well on many occasions, but it cannot have served him or the rest of us well on an issue of such profound importance as the decision to take this country into war. So again I welcome the return, which has been acknowledged, to a more formal, minuted and civil-service driven approach on issues of this nature in future.
	We know that critical caveats were removed or altered for the dossier as a result of the interplay between No. 10 and the intelligence chiefs. The effect was to maximise the persuasive force of the dossier itself. At the beginning of his speech, the Prime Minister said that he wanted again to respond to the allegation that the Government had deliberately sought to mislead us. I hope that whatever our differences, as far as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North-East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell), myself and other colleagues are concerned, the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and others will acknowledge that we have never made that allegation, and we do not make it today. Our differences were distinct but open. We did not allege motives that we did not think were there.
	On the patchiness and sporadic nature of the intelligence that Butler refers to—frankly, I shall leave the earlier exchanges on that to speak for themselves—it is clear that the ultimate responsibility for the final words in the dossier rest with the Prime Minister, even if, as the Government argue, it was not the case for war, but the case for drawing people's attention to the directness of the threat, although that does not look so direct now.

George Foulkes: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Charles Kennedy: If the right hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I want to make progress.
	Lord Butler was asked to conduct an inquiry into systems. As such, he concludes that the critical failings were of a collective nature, so he does not seek to apportion individual blame. Yet surely the court of public opinion is looking for something more definitive. When the Prime Minister made a statement on the Butler report last week, anyone who watched the evening news bulletins cannot have failed to be moved when they listened to the relatives of the forces personnel who have been killed in Iraq describe how people seem to carry the can in Washington, yet all these mistakes are made in all parts of our system—there is a big question mark over whether we needed to go into this war in the first place—and no one carries the can except those who have paid the ultimate price.

Kevin Brennan: The House is listening carefully to the right hon. Gentleman. He has been careful all along to say that he does not underestimate the good faith shown by the Prime Minister throughout the proceedings. Can I take it from what he says that that is still his position?

Charles Kennedy: I have just said so, so the answer is yes.

Kenneth Clarke: The right hon. Gentleman generously accords with the judgment of good faith, and I think that I am persuaded by it. However, does he acknowledge that good faith can involve a certain amount of self-persuasion that what is being done is in the legitimate public interest? Can he suggest what legitimate role Alastair Campbell and Jonathan Powell played when they discussed the presentation of the intelligence to the public, which was nothing other than presenting the world as policy makers would wish it to be, rather than the world as it actually was?

Charles Kennedy: The right hon. and learned Gentleman, in his various senior incarnations under various Conservative leaders, will have had more experience of the trials and tribulations of such conversations in and around No. 10 Downing street than myself. Where he and I share a direct experience with the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and, going back a number of years, Lord Heseltine, of the omnipresence of Mr. Campbell is in a meeting on the eve of the launch of Britain in Europe. On that occasion, we saw that Mr. Campbell was more than capable of a conflation of assessment and advocacy, which leads me to believe that that could well have fed through to another occasion such as the one we are talking about.
	Last Friday, Dr. Blix said of the Butler report:
	"My main reflection on reading the Butler report was to share its regret (termed surprise in the report) that the UK and other countries did not reassess their intelligence in the light of the inspection reports of UNMOVIC."
	Dr. David Kay, the former head of the Iraq survey group, said of Butler:
	"I think the Prime Minister, as I would say the US President, should have been able to tell before the war that the evidence did not exist for drawing the conclusion that Iraq presented a clear, present and imminent threat on the basis of existing weapons of mass destruction. That was not something that required a war."
	Those are the considered, impartial assessments of the former head of the Iraq survey group and the former chief weapons inspector, acting with the authority of the United Nations. Their words are crystal clear, whatever the explanations and the spin put on them by those around the Prime Minister.

Robert Marshall-Andrews: Will the right hon. Gentleman attempt to answer a question that I was going to put to the Prime Minister, who can at least listen to it, even if he cannot answer? The right hon. Gentleman referred to a passage in Lord Butler's report that deals with the assurance given to the Attorney-General that the Prime Minister was certain that Saddam was in breach. The report records its surprise, which is mandarin for shock, that policy makers—or politicians, including the Prime Minister—and the intelligence community did not,
	"as the generally negative results of UNMOVIC inspections became increasingly apparent",
	re-evaluate in early 2003 the quality of the intelligence. Will the right hon. Gentleman hazard a guess as to why the Prime Minister did not do so?

Charles Kennedy: Following the surrogate question asked by the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), I feel that I should send an invoice to the Prime Minister for having to answer on his behalf. The hon. and learned Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews) is correct that the jigsaw remains frustratingly incomplete because we do not know what legal opinions were offered to the Government on the basis of the available intelligence. We know from the Butler report that the Attorney-General provided advice on a number of occasions, and it cites three in particular. However, Butler supports the view that publication of all the legal opinions
	"might inhibit the provision of full and frank . . . advice."
	In normal times, that argument would be extremely persuasive, but these are not normal times, as the unprecedented decision to publish the dossier demonstrated. Such an event had never happened before, and the Government made great play of that.
	Given the extent to which a considerable amount of legal opinion is already in the public domain, the case for full disclosure is surely overwhelming. As long as critical pieces of legal advice remain shrouded in secrecy, doubts and suspicions will linger and fester. If I were the Prime Minister, I would bite the bullet and publish in full.

Clare Short: I agree that it would be desirable for the legal opinions to be published, but we get new information in Butler that it was not the Attorney-General who decided that there was legal authority for war. He required the Prime Minister to give an unequivocal finding of fact that there was no way other than war to pursue 1441. Given what Blix was achieving in the Security Council, and the destruction of, for example, 70 ballistic missiles, is that not extraordinary? Does it not come back to the Prime Minister, rather than to the Attorney-General?

Charles Kennedy: That is extraordinary. The right hon. Lady underlines the point that I have just made. It might appear less extraordinary if we had the evidence and those legal opinions in front of us, but we cannot know. It would be in the best interests of the Prime Minister, let alone the rest of us, to put the lot into the public domain, and the sooner the better.

Hugh Bayley: rose—

Clive Soley: rose—

Charles Kennedy: No, I am sorry.
	The dossier—the crucial case of a direct threat to the United Kingdom from Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, which came to underpin the subsequent case for the war—was subject to undue political input. A description was placed before the public to maximise the persuasiveness of the later argument mounted by the Government to pursue that war. At the time of the debate and the vote here in the House of Commons, we were not aware of that entire background. Today, given what we know now, surely it becomes increasingly likely that the Government would have been hard pushed, or would have found it mission impossible, to persuade a majority in the House for war at that time and on the basis of the argument that was advanced.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Charles Kennedy: I have made it clear that I am not giving way. I am sorry.
	The overwhelming mood would surely have been to allow the authorised weapons inspectors the further period of time that they had sought via the United Nations. There was one other casualty at that point, and my goodness, it would have been a welcome one at the time, given the benefit of hindsight today. I do not believe the House would have acquiesced in endorsing the Bush-led new doctrine, the policy of pre-emptive strike, in quite the way it happened.
	Despite what he said last week and this afternoon, and despite the fact that I welcome the practical implications that he acknowledged flow from all this, the Prime Minister should listen and understand—I still honestly believe that he does not quite get it—what people in the country think about the matter. He must demonstrate a genuine contrition for the misjudgments that have undoubtedly taken place. Public confidence must be restored in the process of government generally and in the lessons to be learned from the sequence of events. The people of Iraq need ongoing reassurance, given the volatile and violent situation there.
	Not least, the Government should announce the carefully planned and phased withdrawal of our troops from Iraq as a democratically elected Government become established. Other countries, including those in the region, should contribute resources and troops as necessary. Given what the Prime Minister said in his remarks, the existing coalition should account fully for the expenditures of the development fund for Iraq, particularly the unaudited Iraqi oil revenues. The clinching paragraph of the March motion in the House of Commons and the great prize that the Government held up for backing the Bush Administration have not been mentioned today. We must have some meaningful re-engagement with the road map and the wider middle east peace process, which has been an appalling victim of events.

Hugh Bayley: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Charles Kennedy: No. I have reached the end of my remarks.
	In his statement last week, the Prime Minister spoke of his pride in what had been achieved in Iraq. We can all feel pride in the courage and professionalism of our armed forces, particularly when they are asked by Parliament to carry out such a difficult and dangerous task. But we certainly do not feel pride in what they were instructed to do at the behest of the Government and, increasingly, not in the name of our country. In fact, we feel ashamed. I hope that in the years to come, in his most private moments as he reflects on these events and the well-documented litany of failures and political misjudgments that went with them, the Prime Minister might acknowledge a sense of personal shame.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I remind the House that Mr. Speaker has placed a limit of eight minutes on all Back-Bench speeches and that that applies from now on.

Bruce George: Perhaps I could help the leader of the Liberal party. When the Defence Committee visited the United Nations on the day before Dr. Blix's speech, we asked a very senior person how long Dr. Blix's group would need properly to evaluate whether there were weapons of mass destruction. He replied, "Twelve months if there is full compliance by Saddam Hussein's regime." When he was asked how long it would take if there was obstruction, he said, "For ever." I therefore have some reservations about the idea that Dr. Blix's view was necessarily sacrosanct. Having listened to the two Opposition party leaders, I remain as convinced and supportive as I was when I heard the speeches that the Prime Minister made at the time and subsequently.
	However, I am not here to discuss Butler. Others will do that again and again until they eventually get the result that they require—if they ever do, and I suspect that it will take a long time. I want to talk about the report of the Defence Committee that is relevant to the motion.
	In 1991, the Defence Committee produced an excellent report on the war. We visited Iraq before and after that war, which was termed Operation Granby. Following Operation Desert Fox, we spent a great deal of time examining the no-fly zones, into which we conducted an inquiry in 2000. We were very much involved in observing the events leading up to the war that we are discussing. We visited Kuwait beforehand. We held an inquiry that resulted in three volumes and 130 conclusions and recommendations. We held 19 public sessions. When British troops returned, we visited them all over the country and in Germany. We went twice to the United States. I believe that our report is well worth reading, and I hope that the Ministry of Defence reads it carefully.
	We say in our report that we recognise how much we ask of our soldiers, sailors and airmen. For them, Operation Telic followed deployments to Afghanistan, the Balkans and Sierra Leone. Some of those who fought in the combat phase had already returned as part of the continuing stabilisation operation. We should remember that in Operation Fresco, 19,000 service personnel were committed to firefighting operations. One unit from the Army—16 Air Assault Brigade—was engaged in those responsibilities throughout December 2002, handed them over on 6 January, and began pre-deployment training on 8 January.
	That cycle of excess stretch cannot be maintained indefinitely. When the Chief of the Defence Staff appeared before us in March, he said that it would be impossible to mount an operation of a similar scale to Operation Telic until 2008–09. I therefore look forward with great interest to tomorrow's Treasury-inspired Ministry of Defence response on the future size, shape and equipment of our armed forces. We must realise that when British forces go off to fight wars, be they popular or unpopular, they must be provided with the equipment that they need, when they need it. Too often in Operation Telic, equipment arrived late or was lost in theatre.
	Those problems are well publicised in our report. However, having considered the deficiencies and strengths of our military effort, we felt on balance that the operation was well conducted by very well motivated personnel.
	Iraq demonstrated that winning a war is relatively easy in comparison to what happens afterwards. Clearly, the planning in Iraq was inadequate. That was partly due to differences in the US Administration, but we would be deluding ourselves if we argued that things went wrong solely because the Department of Defence and the State Department fell out. There were many other reasons. First, enough troops to win the war might not be enough to win the peace. Secondly, failures of intelligence meant that we did not identify who our friends or our enemies were. We recall that the person chosen to lead the civilian Administration in Basra turned out to be a former brigadier in the Iraqi army and a Ba'athist, and that his successor was accused of being a confidant of Uday Hussein. Thirdly, language and cultural differences proved harder to overcome than was foreseen. If we contemplate more expeditionary operations further afield, those issues will be essential to the effectiveness of our forces.
	The full Defence Committee went to Iraq last July, after the war, and six of its members went out last May. They visited the temporary divisional detention facilities, where those who had been interned by British forces under powers provided to occupying powers by the fourth Geneva convention were held. I am informed that those being held there were generally well treated. Many have now been released but some remain. The Committee is aware of the allegations of misconduct against a number of British personnel, and where there is evidence to support them, they are being investigated. I am confident that, if wrongdoing is found, the guilty will be punished. Some recent answers to parliamentary questions were very helpful in that regard.
	A number of cases have already been referred to the prosecuting authorities. These incidents are serious and, if proven, would be a blot on the reputation of our forces, but they must not be allowed to overshadow the vast amount of good work that has been done and is being done. The Committee has requested a memorandum from the Ministry of Defence, and we will inquire into the allegations of misconduct of British forces. I can assure hon. Members and those outside the House that this will be a thorough inquiry.
	The war has gone and, yes, there have been recriminations. However, I spoke yesterday to a fellow Defence Committee Chairman—of a NATO country that did not participate in the military action in Iraq. I said, "Now the war is over. There is a UN-endorsed programme to establish a democratic constitution and a properly elected and representative Government of Iraq. We may have had our differences before and during the war, but the situation has now changed." I just hope that those countries will follow UN Security Council resolution 1546, which requests member states to send military forces to assist in Iraq.
	I encourage all colleagues to urge those countries that are being intimidated to remove their troops, as well as those that might be thinking of going and those that might not, to understand that our fight is now against the remnants of the Saddam regime, against al-Qaeda, and against all sorts of people who want to do harm to the new Government of Iraq. I very much hope that people will be prepared to—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The right hon. Gentleman has had his eight minutes.

William Hague: I am most grateful for the opportunity to take part in this debate. This is the first time that I have sought to speak on these matters since the debate of 18 March 2003, when the House made its principal decision on military action. I supported the Government's case for military action then, and I support it now for exactly the same reasons: that Saddam Hussein was a proven danger who had twice invaded other countries; that the alternative to taking action against him would have been to release him from a great deal of pressure, because sanctions and other measures would have been difficult to maintain; that there was a limit to the number of ultimatums that could pass without action being taken against him; and that international affairs had come to a point of decision at which the issue had to be resolved one way or the other and it was in the national interest of this country to act in concert with our principal ally, the United States of America. Those were the reasons that I voted in favour of military action, and I believe that they are the genuine reasons that the Prime Minister was in favour of military action. Placing too much weight on the intelligence, which was not his real reason, has led him into so much of this difficulty.
	There is now a chance, but only a chance, of a great improvement in Iraqi affairs. One of the most murderous and dangerous dictators in the world has been removed. There is a possibility of democracy, a possibility of an improved quality of life for the people of Iraq, and even the chance of greater prosperity in the years ahead. Therefore, while many observers are sceptical about whether western concepts of freedom can be brought into an Arab state, if they are wrong—and they might be—the politics of the middle east will be transformed, and transformed for the better.
	I therefore still believe that it was the right thing to do. The trouble is that that is now a minority view in the country as a whole, as is clear from every survey, and possibly from recent election results. Experimentation with spin and public relations, even from a Government who are so skilled in spin and public relations, has led to a public relations disaster on the case for war.
	We are all familiar with public relations disasters—I am familiar with more than most. But here we have a monumental failing of public relations, which now casts doubt on the credibility of the actions of the Government, on the international standing of this country, on the moral justification for the war, and on the basis for any future similar action by this country and the United States. Millions of our fellow citizens will now never believe that there was a good case for the war in Iraq, and millions of them will never believe that there is a good case for action in a comparable situation. To have created that situation is a serious responsibility for the Government.
	Many errors in a run-up to war can be forgiven, and much that was in the dossier was moderate in tone, as the Butler report pointed out. But the Government have discredited much of their case for war, and damaged this country through mistakes in presentation that were unnecessary and for which they bear a serious responsibility.
	The great mystery to me has always been the business of the infamous 45-minute piece of intelligence. My worry has always been not that it went into the dossier, because there was intelligence that mentioned 45 minutes, but that Ministers, including the Prime Minister, seem to have been consistently ignorant of what it meant, and of whether it was still true many months after it was reported.

Gordon Prentice: When John Scarlett discovered in July 2003 that the intelligence relating to the 45 minutes was unreliable, should he have told the Hutton inquiry that the intelligence had changed, and should he have told the Prime Minister? Is it right that John Scarlett should now be appointed as director of MI6 in such circumstances?

William Hague: John Scarlett should have told the Hutton inquiry, and he should have told the Prime Minister. I will come to that point in a moment.
	Let me take a prior point: it has been reported clearly that the Prime Minister did not know that the 45-minute claim related to battlefield weapons. I find that extraordinary. Ministers ask questions all the time of their civil servants, about all kinds of things. One cannot picture most Ministers being told by their officials that lunch would be ready in 45 minutes without asking searching questions about the menu and by whom it was going to be delivered. The idea that someone can walk into the office or give the Prime Minister a document saying, "Our deadliest enemy has weapons of mass destruction that could be mobilised against us in 45 minutes", and that the Minister or Prime Minister does not say, "What sort of weapons?", is absolutely unimaginable. Can we imagine Baroness Thatcher being told at the time of the Falklands that the Argentines had weapons of mass destruction that could be used in 45 minutes? The official who told her would have been pinned to the wall until he had worked out and told her every last little bit of intelligence and any point of detail about that claim.
	So how could this happen? The hon. Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice), who just intervened, raised a parallel point, which is the incredible sequel, that key evidence identified in the Butler inquiry, possibly including the 45-minute claim, was withdrawn in July 2003—a year ago. And yet it turned out a few days ago, so we were told, that the Prime Minister was only aware of that withdrawal of intelligence as a result of the Butler inquiry—more recently. So on this major item of public controversy, on which the Government's whole credibility is at stake—with controversy raging about the 45 minutes and many other claims, in the press and among the public—MI6, and perhaps Government officials, knew that the evidence had been withdrawn, and no one told the Prime Minister. If it were in a novel, we would all say that it was ludicrous—that it could not happen. Of course they would tell the Prime Minister.

Alex Salmond: So the first item is unimaginable and the second is ludicrous. What conclusions did the right hon. Gentleman draw?

William Hague: How neat of the hon. Gentleman to lead me to the conclusions—and I am most grateful to him for giving me an extra minute in which to explain them.
	One conclusion I would have drawn had I been in the Prime Minister's shoes is that the officials or intelligence officers who had not told me were not doing their job, and should be part of the Chancellor's great redeployment to the regions—probably to the hon. Gentleman's constituency, which is a very long way from Downing street.
	There are four possible explanations of how these things could be true. One, which I discount, is that the Prime Minister does not ask questions—that he is indolent or inattentive. Given my knowledge of the Prime Minister, I do not believe that that is the case. Another is that officials do not do their job properly in informing the Prime Minister. Perhaps there is a hint of that in the point that we have just been discussing, but I doubt that it is the case in general, because the British civil service is a fine machine and puts forward its very best cogs to serve the Prime Minister.
	A third theory is that this has something to do with the criticisms of the culture of Government that Lord Butler and his colleagues identified: that informality can mean lack of rigour, that the blurring of the line between officials and political advisers can lead to mistakes—to the elevation of material to the public domain without adequate examination of it—and that people who only know politics dabble in intelligence, and people who only know intelligence dabble in politics, at their peril.
	Let me respond to the point made by the hon. Member for Pendle about Mr. Scarlett. I think that he crossed that line at his peril. My personal view is that given the importance of restoring the public credibility of an intelligence service whose officials should never really become public figures, it is important for the senior official not to be someone who has been the subject of public controversy over the publication of intelligence that has subsequently been disproved. I have no doubt that he could serve the public in many continuing ways, but none of us is indispensable, and it should be possible for MI6 to be led by a different person. That is my honest answer to the hon. Gentleman's question.
	Part of that culture of Government is that there are never any minutes of key meetings. At the time of the famous Formula 1 tobacco advertising outrage—as I would call it—of a few years ago, there were never any minutes showing who made the decisions. It is a culture of informality, but also a culture of deniability, in which it is hard to pin down who said what to whom.
	There is, however, a final explanation. It is that the intelligence was never really an important factor in the Government's decision to wage war; that they waged war for precisely the reasons on which I agree with them, and precisely the reasons that I stated at the beginning of my speech; that they knew the history of Saddam Hussein, and knew that what little they would glean from intelligence on a shifting basis from month to month would not change their case for war. That, I believe, is the Government's central error, and one for which they must bear a heavy responsibility—because it means that they pursued the correct policy, but have ruined the case for doing so.
	The Prime Minister says that he takes responsibility, but just shrugs his shoulders. It is a tragedy for him that this has done serious harm to our nation and its allies; and that, having pursued a policy that was essentially correct, the Government have ruined their case in the eyes of the country.

Robin Cook: It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague). One of the strengths of a party that experiences a long period in opposition—as his party is discovering—is that it accrues a large number of ex-leaders on its Back Benches. It appears that we shall hear from two of them today.
	The only comment I would make on the speech that we heard from the Conservative party's current leader, the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard), is that it came a year and a half too late. This place works when the Opposition oppose, but that did not happen in the run-up to the war in Iraq. Indeed, one reason why my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister might not have asked enough tough questions of the intelligence agencies is that he knew perfectly well that when he came to the Chamber, he would never be asked any tough questions from the Opposition Dispatch Box.
	I am grateful to the Butler committee—two of its distinguished members are with us today—for asking a lot of tough questions about the intelligence. Out of those tough questions emerged an alarming picture of intelligence that was overwhelmingly based on hearsay and second-hand information, and in one case on third-hand information; indeed, the ultimate sources frequently turned out to be unreliable. The Butler committee says in its report that it was struck by the thinness of the intelligence base. What is puzzling is that it was examining exactly the same intelligence that was available to the Prime Minister and to the Government, which the Prime Minister told us left no doubt about the existence of weapons of mass destruction. Indeed, he repeated that point here today.

George Osborne: Was the intelligence materially stronger when, as Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Gentleman consented to action in 1998 in Operation Desert Fox?

Robin Cook: I am not surprised by that question because I noticed that such points were in the hymn sheet that was circulated last week. First, we took that action precisely because there was no co-operation with UN weapons inspectors at that time. If they had received the co-operation that Hans Blix has received, no such action would have been taken. Secondly, such action was a limited air strike against military targets only; I was never daft enough to suggest that we should launch a major armed invasion.
	When I left office, we were pursuing a strategy of containment. I am bound to say, given all that we have learned since we went into Iraq, that that strategy was strikingly successful in denying Saddam Hussein a single weapon of mass destruction, without the need to go to war.

Mike Gapes: rose—

Robin Cook: I shall give way on this occasion, but it must be the last time.

Mike Gapes: I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend. He talks about containment, but does he not accept that half a million Iraqi children died as a result of that policy, that Saddam was able to suppress his people and that there were 4 million Iraqi exiles? Does he not accept that further pursuing that policy would have led to the continuation of that situation? Was it not better to do something at last to get rid of Saddam?

Robin Cook: I invite my hon. Friend to read the Butler report, because if he does he will find that it explicitly and correctly states that there is no basis in international law for regime change. Saddam Hussein was undoubtedly a brutal psychopath, and nobody has highlighted the scale of his evils and sins more than I have. But my hon. Friend has to face the fact that he is making a case for which there is no basis in international law—if one acts without international consensus, as we did on this occasion. If we are to have a doctrine of intervention on humanitarian grounds—of which I am all in favour—it has to be acted on with international authority, not according to a unilateral decision taken by Washington and London. That is what went wrong in this case.
	I saw many intelligence assessments when I was at the Foreign Office. Doubt and intelligence assessments go hand in hand; doubt is in the nature of intelligence work. One is trying to guess the secrets that somebody is trying to keep, so it inevitably follows that one is trying to carry out a task even worse than that of the Israelites: to make bricks out of straws in the wind. To be fair to the agencies, they were always absolutely frank about the limitations of their knowledge. That is why I was frankly astonished by the September dossier, which bore no relation in tone to any of the intelligence assessments that I saw. It was one-sided, dogmatic and unqualified.
	The root problem is that intelligence was used in order to sell policy, so it was required to be much more firm and definite than intelligence can ever be. Intelligence was not used as the basis on which to make policy. Here, I totally agree with the point made by the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks. I find it breathtaking that for six months—from September to March—the Prime Minister believed that he and John Scarlett were talking about long-range systems, while John Scarlett believed that they were talking about battlefield weapons. Apparently, they talked about that subject several times during those six months. I do not blame John Scarlett. I actually asked him whether we were talking only about battlefield weapons and he was quite frank and open in telling me—as he was subsequently in telling Hutton—that that is exactly what we were talking about. I find it strange that No. 10 did not show more curiosity about what those weapons were. The explanation for that absence of curiosity is precisely, of course, that it was not on intelligence that the policy was being formulated.
	On that, I have to say, the Butler report is quite conclusive. For me, the most crucial passage in the Butler report is where it sets out the fact that when we took the decision to take stronger action against Iraq
	"there was no intelligence that Iraq was of more immediate concern."
	In other words, the intelligence did not change; the assessment of the picture inside Iraq did not change. The change that precipitated the movement away from containment to invasion was not a change in Iraq, but a regime change in Washington and the election of a Bush Administration with a commitment to invasion. The most embarrassing conclusion of all is that if those hanging chads in Florida had pointed in the opposite direction and Al Gore had been elected, we would not have ended up committing British troops to military action in Iraq, but would have loyally stood by the transatlantic policy of containment.
	We now come to the crux of the problem faced by my right hon. Friends in trying to find closure on Iraq as a controversy. If they are not candid on the reason why we got into the war, they will have a problem convincing the electorate why it will not happen again. The noises currently coming out of Washington about Iran, which sound alarmingly similar to the noises about Iraq two years before the invasion, of course raise public anxieties.
	I want to be helpful to my right hon. Friends, so let me make a suggestion about what they might do in order to reassure the public. First, they could formally and loudly ditch the doctrine of the pre-emptive strike, which Washington invented. Perhaps my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary could do so in his wind-up speech. I think that he would find it congenial, as I suspect that he never believed in it himself.
	If we are to invade a country not because it is an imminent threat, but because—the basis of the doctrine of the pre-emptive strike—we want to pre-empt it from becoming a threat at some unknown and unspecified date in the future, we are placing an enormous weight on the capacity to have reliable and accurate intelligence. Yet what we have learned from the whole saga of Iraq—and what is spelled out in the Butler report—is that intelligence can never be that reliable. It would help if the Front Benchers could now say to the public that one of the key lessons of Iraq is that intelligence alone can never bear the weight of going to a war in which 20,000 people are killed in the carnage.
	I will make a second suggestion. This may not be the right moment in history for John Scarlett to take up his post as head of the SIS. In saying that, I do not speak in any spirit of criticism of John Scarlett, whom I always found absolutely professional. He was quite frank and open with me when I asked him questions, and I am sure that he would have been equally frank and open with No. 10 if the Prime Minister had asked him the same questions.
	If one looks at what happens in the private sector when a company is faced with corporate and systemic failure—effectively what is described in the Butler report—one finds that someone from outside is sought to come in and take a fresh approach. I do think that the SIS now needs someone from elsewhere in the public sector who can bring that fresh approach and put the difficult questions that the SIS now needs to face up to.
	It may be a sign of the approaching general election that this debate has been the most partisan on Iraq that I can yet recall. I am not sure that this grave matter is an appropriate one for party political point scoring. Britain and British troops will have to live with the consequences of our decision for a long time to come. We were told that Iraq would be a victory over terrorism. We are now told that Iraq is the front line in the war against terrorism. The great irony is that it is precisely our intervention that has created the conditions—poor security, open borders and a population with a grievance—in which al-Qaeda is now thriving in Iraq.
	My deep worry is that when Osama bin Laden struck the twin towers, he wanted to send the message that the only possible relationship between the west and Islam is one of violent confrontation. I fear that, by invading Iraq, we responded in precisely the way that Osama bin Laden wanted. As a consequence, we and the west will have to live with violent confrontations and the violent consequences of this strategic blunder for a decade to come.

Tam Dalyell: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. May I make a House of Commons point of order, perhaps as Father of the House? The former Foreign Secretary has made a speech of great importance, whatever one may think about it. Why was not a single member of the Cabinet present to hear what he had to say? I am sure that 20, 30 or 40 years ago there would have been three, four or five Cabinet Ministers listening to him.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The Father of the House is well experienced in these matters and will understand that who will occupy the Front Bench is for the Government to decide, not a matter for the Chair.

Teddy Taylor: The general message that I get from reading the Butler report is that the House of Commons, and the people, were misled. We have a duty to the JIC to try to use the material in the report to influence future policy.
	I was in the minority of people who did not support the war in Iraq. I explained in the debate at the time that that was because of what I considered to be the near-hypocrisy of the western powers, and in particular of the US. Those powers complained that Saddam Hussein was a threat to the world and to security, even though the Reigle report set out clearly that the US had openly supplied the most horrendous weapons of mass destruction to Saddam Hussein to allow him to invade Iran.
	Those weapons included anthrax, clostridium—a source of toxin—and histoplasma, which causes a disease resembling tuberculosis. There was also brucella, which damages major organs, another substance that causes gas gangrene, and seven other materials. People who talk about the threat to democracy that Saddam posed should remember the debt that we owe for the mistakes that we made. When I raised those matters, I was advised that France, Russia and Germany had also provided help for Saddam, but I do not see how that makes things any better.
	My second reason for opposing the war was the military action in Afghanistan. Far from restoring peace and democracy, it has created a chaotic situation outside Kabul. The only obvious result has been to transform that sad nation into a massive producer of drugs—as can be seen all over the country. There also appeared to be an appalling lack of humility: far from improving the situation, we have simply helped the growth of extremists.
	However, the majority of people supported the war. For them, the wise and sombre words of the Butler report should arouse concern. We should think carefully about three key passages in the report, which admit that an error was made. Paragraph 47 states:
	"Intelligence merely provides techniques for improving the basis of knowledge. As with other techniques, it can be a dangerous tool if its limitations are not recognised by those who seek to use it."
	Paragraph 464 states that
	"the language in the dossier may have left with readers the impression that there was fuller and firmer intelligence behind the judgements than was the case: our view . . . is that judgements in the dossier went to (although not beyond) the outer limits of the intelligence available. The Prime Minister's description . . . of the picture painted by the intelligence services . . . as 'extensive, detailed and authoritative' may have reinforced this impression."
	Finally, paragraph 34 on page 154 states:
	"We conclude that it was a serious weakness that the JIC's warnings on the limitations of the intelligence"—
	that was provided—
	"were not made sufficiently clear in the dossier."
	When we add those three factors together, it is obvious that we were misled. Unless we accept that, we will not learn lessons for the future. I hope that this debate will not descend into hon. Members shouting at each other, as we know that the same sort of opinions were held on both sides of the House. We must make up our minds not to make the same mistake again.
	I believe that there is a terrible and real danger that we are about to go through exactly same process—of misrepresentation and not telling the truth—in relation to Iran. For a start, a mass of distorted and misleading information has appeared on the front pages of our newspapers. The headline in the most recent edition of The Sunday Telegraph asserted that America was accusing Iran of complicity in the attack on the World Trade Centre. The newspaper stated that between eight and 10 hijackers had travelled through Iran, with the help of the Iranian Government, to play a part in the attack. The allegation was that they were to act as muscle.The CIA chief made a statement only yesterday that that was not true. There was no evidence of Iran's participation in that activity. On the other hand, the stories keep being published. Iran has been accused of participation with al-Qaeda, which those who know Iran know is complete nonsense. It was further reported that Bush officials were privately contemplating a possible military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities, allegedly before the Russian fuel rods were delivered.
	If we want to make progress with Iran and not to seek a diversion from the embarrassments over Iraq, we should do three things. First, we should recognise, with some humility, that we have a huge responsibility for what has happened, because of the arms we provided to Iraq—all the appalling weapons of mass destruction—when it invaded Iran and inflicted such terrible damage on its people. Secondly, we should appreciate that we have a duty to take meaningful and positive action in relation to the camp of 4,800 Mujaheddin-e-Khalq Organisation terrorists who have been dropping bombs in Iran for many years and killing thousands of people. That camp is in Iraq and is protected by American forces. What are we doing about it and what role do we think Iran should have? Thirdly, we should recognise that far from being an extremist nation, Iran is one in which those of the Christian and Jewish faiths have freedom to worship in their own churches.

Win Griffiths: The hon. Gentleman appears to have exhausted the point about what should happen to Iran and our relations with that country. However, should we not do everything possible to get the Iranian Government to change their minds about their appalling human rights record? We now know that the trial of the person allegedly responsible for the murder of the Canadian photographer has been cut short, and that there has been no publicity about it.

Teddy Taylor: What we should publicise is the truth about Iran. The hon. Gentleman and I were there together. Does he accept that Iran has freedom of religion? Does he accept that more than half of the students in the universities are women? Does he accept that Iran has a democratic base, as a Muslim country with an elected Parliament and an elected leader? I appeal to him to think about the matter. The one thing that we do not want to do is to spread the same kind of nastiness and untruths about that country, when we should be telling people the facts.
	So far as Iran's nuclear activities are concerned, the attitude we are taking is the worst we could take—that Britain, France, the US and Israel have the right to have nuclear weapons, but nobody else has. Surely we want to get agreement on getting rid of nuclear weapons. We should be putting forward a plan under which every country will try to get rid of those dreadful weapons, in the right way.
	I say in all sincerity that unless we are willing to treat Iran with courtesy and with dignity, to recognise that it is a democracy with an elected Government within a Muslim state, and that it has a positive role to play, we could end up with a great international tragedy. In the report, we saw how the Government—all Governments can do it—got carried away and tried to justify their policies by stretching things. Surely we should recognise that truth is the best weapon in politics and that we should apply it in all our activities. If we achieve progress in that area of the world, the report that we are debating and the speeches made on it will achieve more than the usual political battles between parties.
	I think that a great mistake was made, as I said at the time. Be that as it may, it is desperately important that we avoid similar difficulties in the future. That means ensuring that the truth is told and that we show more understanding of foreign countries. We should not build up the kind of hatred that lasts for years and years and simply will not go away. Many of us in Britain and the US are very nice people, but we are probably not the best people to be emperors of the world. If we want to be emperors of the world, we will have to show the dignity and truthfulness that is desperately important if we are to secure peace in the world and understanding between nations.

Ann Clwyd: I am greatly tempted to answer the right hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) on his point about containment. Containment did not work. Containment never worked and, Robin, if you had read the Select Committee on International Development's report on sanctions you would have known the answer. The Committee concluded that sanctions were not working, that Saddam Hussein was getting exactly what he wanted, that the sanctions were too loose and should be tightened, and that the person mainly responsible for the suffering of the Iraqi people was Saddam Hussein himself. But that is a debate for another time.

Andrew Turner: If the hon. Lady believes what she said, does she believe that the Prime Minister was right to say on 26 February—as quoted by the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Inverness, West (Mr. Kennedy)—that the removal of weapons of mass destruction would permit Saddam Hussein to remain in place?

Ann Clwyd: My view has been expressed often enough in the House: I believed in regime change and I wanted the regime toppled a long time ago. Whatever argument could be used to topple that regime, I would support it. That is still my view. I am certain that the people of Iraq are very pleased that Saddam Hussein has been removed. I do not know anyone who would care to refute that statement. I go often enough to Iraq and talk to enough people to be convinced that that is their view.

Alex Salmond: The hon. Lady has been consistent in her view throughout. However, I have a certain memory of President Clinton, in a speech to the Labour conference in 2002, making exactly the same point about the success of containment, and every member of the Cabinet sitting behind him nodded vigorously.

Ann Clwyd: I am afraid that the President was wrong as well. Containment did not work, but that is a debate for another time.

Malcolm Savidge: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Ann Clwyd: May I move on? I have given only a few lines of my speech. I shall give way later.
	A few days ago, I received an e-mail from Baghdad confirming that the evidence collected by Indict over the past seven years would be used in the war crimes trial against Saddam Hussein and his regime, and that genocide is one of the many charges that he will face. For those of us who have campaigned on the issue for more than 20 years, Saddam Hussein's performance in the witness box the other week was predictable. He jabbed his finger at the judge, insisted that he was still President of Iraq and justified the invasion of Kuwait.
	As the charges were read out, we were reminded that his was a regime that had complete disregard for human life. In 1987, the Committee against Repression and for Democratic Rights in Iraq, which I chaired, published a pamphlet on torture in Iraq. It included the testimony of an Iraqi doctor, who said that he had been forced to take part in one of the more sinister practices that took place in Abu Ghraib—the forced draining of the blood of political prisoners before their execution, so that the reason for their death could be recorded as heart failure. Only a regime such as Saddam Hussein's could possibly think of turning a life-saving humanitarian practice into a cruel method of murder.
	It has become commonplace to argue that the new Interim Government lack legitimacy. The words "quisling" and "puppet" are widely used, while anti-coalition violence is said to represent the real war of liberation. That ignores all the recent polls, which show widespread support for the Interim Government. In the last poll, Prime Minister Ayad Allawi had an approval rating of 73 per cent., while the President received 84 per cent.
	I have known and worked with the opposition to Saddam for more than two decades, so I find the description of brave individuals as puppets deeply offensive. In 1978, Dr. Allawi was nearly killed in an axe attack in London. The Deputy Prime Minister, Dr. Barham Salih, whose family are in the House today, was imprisoned at the age of 16 for his political activities. The Deputy Foreign Minister, Dr. Hamid al-Bayati, was imprisoned in Abu Ghraib and five members of his family were killed by Saddam's regime. Some 8,000 members of Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari's family disappeared in 1983, and have never been seen since.
	Every day, those individuals and others face the knowledge that they are targets for assassination, but they continue to work, just as the policemen return to their jobs every day, despite the suicide bombs targeted at them. One of them told a newspaper:
	"Our job is to protect the Iraqi people. There are bombings, but we are not scared of these terrorists. These people are cowards, who are damaging our country."
	Those who champion resistance as the real voice of Iraq offer not an alternative political programme, but merely opposition to the existing strategy. They are silent about what they want for Iraq, apart from getting the Americans out. They are opposed by the emerging civil society in Iraq.
	On 21 June, Abdullah Mushin of the Iraqi Federation of Workers Trade Unions addressed Unison's national conference. The IFTU had opposed the war. Last December, its Baghdad offices were raided by coalition forces. Despite that, he was clear that solidarity was required to defeat those who would deny Iraqis democracy. He said:
	"It is only a few days"—
	he was talking just before the end of June—
	"and the IFTU and the Iraqis need your support and solidarity to make this happen, and stop attempts by terrorists and Saddam's supporters to derail the transfer of power to Iraqis. That is a crucial step forward to end the occupation, regain full sovereignty and enable the Iraqi people to determine their own political future through democratic elections."
	The alternative to the violence of the resistance is already in place. At the end of this week, there will be a national conference in Baghdad. That will be the starting point for a process that will conclude with the agreement of a permanent constitution and national elections. Do we really believe that that would be an option if the so-called resistance won?

Malcolm Savidge: Surely, containment worked insofar as it stopped aggression against other countries and much more than most of us would have probably dared to believe in relation to weapons of destruction, but the international community should have given much higher priority to enforcing conditions in relation to human rights. I pay all credit to my hon. Friend for the campaign on that issue that she has run for such a long time.

Ann Clwyd: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for those comments. Clearly, there are lots of points of discussion, but the charge of genocide is very serious. Even in current humanitarian law, genocide calls for action by other countries. That is why the Secretary-General of the UN has started a big debate on the subject of genocide and how we should act when genocide takes place. No one who remembers the events in Rwanda can argue that we should not have taken action. Genocide was an ongoing fact of life in Iraq as well.
	Either we support those who offer the chance of a democratic Iraq, with laws that protect the rights of all Iraqis and a civil society that ensures that the country never returns to the days of dictatorship, or we embrace the gunmen and the bombers, who have already demonstrated their contempt for human life.
	Although we can still argue about the reasons for the conflict, the more pressing argument is what we do now. Opinion polls have consistently recorded that the vast majority of the Iraqis want democracy. They also want foreign troops to leave. However, when asked what Iraq needs at this time, more than 70 per cent. of those who took part in the Oxford Research International poll said, "We want an Iraqi democracy."
	The debate in Britain will be a reflection on us and on our values. Are we capable of the maturity displayed by the Iraqis, who are working in the most difficult circumstances to build a new democracy, or will we be represented by those who despise George Bush and the Prime Minister so much that they are prepared to offer support and succour to the resistance, which offers no alternative or agenda other than bloodshed and chaos?

John Stanley: I was one of those on 18 March last year who voted for the war, and I feel deeply—I will not use the word "deceived"—let down by the Government. I feel let down not simply because the intelligence assessment has proved probably more wide of the mark than any other major intelligence assessment in recent times, or possibly since well back into the last century, but because the Government's justification for going to war since the war ended is totally different from the justification that was given to the House on 18 March last year.
	Since the war, the justification that has been given again and again—it was given by the Prime Minister today—is the benefit of regime change, which I do not for a moment deny, but did he say on 18 March last year that that was one of the reasons that we were going to war? He said:
	"I have never put the justification for action as regime change. We have to act within the terms set out in resolution 1441—that is our legal base."—[Official Report, 18 March 2003; Vol. 401, c. 772.]
	I would have no complaint if he had come to the Dispatch Box on 18 March last year and said, "This is the intelligence that we have, with all the caveats and all the uncertainties, that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction, but we also are going to war to change the regime because, in human rights terms, it is abominable. Although it is illegal to go to war to change the regime, we ask the House to support our going to war on that basis".
	My right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) and the right hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) have raised the key unanswered question: was there a deal between President Bush and our Prime Minister that, come hell or high water, if the Americans decided to go to war to change the regime, Britain and her armed forces would be there? I am no more clear as to what the answer is today than I have been for months past.

Several hon. Members: rose—

John Stanley: Let me finish. If that was the deal that was done, that should most emphatically have been disclosed to the House of Commons on 18 March last year.

Mike Gapes: The right hon. Gentleman has said that going to war to change the regime would be illegal. Is he saying that, when this Government went to war in Kosovo, that was illegal without a United Nations resolution, that the Vietnamese intervention in Cambodia was illegal, and that the Tanzanian intervention in Uganda was illegal? Is it not more complicated than is being suggested?

John Stanley: The answer to the hon. Gentleman's specific question on Kosovo is that the war in Kosovo was legal because it was justified in international law to prevent a looming humanitarian disaster—that is how it was justified by the Government. That was not the justification for the intervention in Iraq. I would have no complaint if the Prime Minister had come to the House and said, "We are seeking the House's approval for going to war to change the regime, even though it is not legal. We are seeing whether the House would support us on that basis."
	I turn to the issue of the intelligence. The right hon. Member for Livingston said that we should never go to war on the basis of an intelligence assessment, but this is the one war in modern times in which there was no incontrovertible, factual event such as an invasion or looming humanitarian disaster. There was only the basis of an intelligence assessment.
	The Government have exposed themselves to some genuine criticism on two scores in particular. First, this Government, for whom the Prime Minister ultimately has to take responsibility, have interleaved the machinery of intelligence with the machinery of presentation in a way that has happened under no previous Government, Labour or Conservative. The Select Committee on Foreign Affairs highlighted that aspect at a relatively early stage, in our report of July last year. We drew attention to the fact that Alastair Campbell was chairing an intelligence committee, and we said that that was quite wrong.
	In addition, it is extremely illuminating to see what has emerged from the e-mail traffic between No. 10 and the Joint Intelligence Committee that has now been publicised both in the Hutton report and the Butler report. Although sofa government has all the supposed benefits of no minutes and therefore not too much in the way of personal accountability for decision taking, the e-mail traffic has exposed in a real way how this Government have operated.
	One of the most significant e-mails was sent on 11 September 2002 by a member of the JIC assessment staff, who sent the following to the intelligence agencies:
	"Dear all
	We have now received comments back from No 10 on the first draft of the dossier. Unsurprisingly they have further questions and areas they would like expanded."
	Those areas were listed. He then came to item No. 4—and I hope that the House will listen carefully, as this is meant to be a process in which the participation of No. 10 related only to presentation:
	"Can we say how many chemical and biological weapons Iraq currently has by type! If we can't give weapons numbers can we give any idea on the quantity of agents available!"
	I suggest that that is not presentation, but political pressure for intelligence information. In no circumstances should that be allowed to happen. The e-mail ends by stating:
	"No 10 through the chairman want the document to be as strong as possible within the bounds of available intelligence. This is therefore a last (!) call for any items of intelligence that agencies think can and should be included."
	When I read those words, they conjured up in my mind a slightly manic intelligence version of the parable of the rich man's feast, in which the intelligence agencies were asked to go out into the highways and byways to search for every available scrap of intelligence to be invited into the September dossier. That is no way to run the interface between Government and the intelligence machine.
	I thought that Mr. Michael Herman, former secretary of the JIC, hit the nail on the head in that excellent "Panorama" programme that went out recently:
	"I suspect that if the Joint Intelligence Committee gets too close to ministers, then there is this temptation of providing intelligence to please."
	I fear that that is what may have happened here.
	Finally, on the question of ministerial scrutiny, I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks. The degree of scrutiny of the intelligence leaves much to be desired, not least on the 45-minute claim. How extraordinary and reprehensible it is that the Prime Minister took this country to war without having asked to which Iraqi weapons system the 45-minute WMD claim related. That is unbelievable, and I would have to say that it is gross negligence. Talking about negligence, that information was known by the chairman of the JIC, Mr. Scarlett, back in September 2002, before the war started, and by the Secretary of State for Defence, and neither of them told the Prime Minister. I believe that that is very serious indeed.

Tam Dalyell: On 26 September 2002, Peter Brookes, the cartoonist of The Times, depicted me in my place in my Chamber—as I am at the moment—holding up a copy of "Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the British Government" and exploding:
	"Why didn't it make the Booker fiction prize shortlist?"
	I say that because there has been a great deal of hindsight. Some of us suspected the dossier from the word go. In my case, that was partly because I had been to Iraq in 1993 and 1998 and thought it impossible that that much run-down and disorganised community could offer any kind of threat.
	It is also a matter of fact that I asked 133 questions—mostly attempted orals—of the Prime Minister between 1997 and the present day on Iraq. I say that not because I think that my views or those of my friends should have been accepted, but because surely that should have led to proper scrutiny. One must ask oneself what is the effect of all the activity of Members of the House of Commons. There are two relatively junior Ministers, and not one member of the Cabinet, in the Chamber for what is billed as a key debate.
	I suspect that part of the problem with the ineffectiveness of Parliament is to be found in paragraph 611 of the Butler report—my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes) read out the first part of it, but did not complete the second part. The second part of the paragraph says:
	"However, we are concerned that the informality and circumscribed character of the Government's procedures which we saw in the context of policy-making towards Iraq risks reducing the scope for informed collective political judgement. Such risks are particularly significant in a field like the subject of our Review, where hard facts are inherently difficult to come by and the quality of judgement is accordingly all the more important."
	The fact of the matter is that it was the policy objectives that drove the intelligence, whereas the intelligence should have driven the policy objectives—the situation was wrong vice versa. The dossier was really part of a post-decision-making process, and the Prime Minister's statement on its publication simply reinforced the impression of more authoritative intelligence than that which in fact existed.
	I fear that the situation in Iraq has become a war of liberation and that, for many, we are the enemy. I wish that I shared the Prime Minister's confidence in Dr. Allawi.
	The question is what is to happen now. We cannot go on acting as if nothing has happened. The Butler report is almost like that onion that one peels—the more one looks at it, the more serious it becomes. We simply cannot have business as usual, and even if we wanted it, the daily news from Iraq would not allow it.
	Ten years' leadership of the Labour party is enough for any person, so the Prime Minister should really consider making way for someone else in such circumstances, and against the background of Butler, and set in motion the due processes of the party.
	I end by recalling when I sat in my place in the Chamber on 17 June 1963 and listened as a very young MP to the then right hon. Member for Flint, West—Nigel Birch was his name—offering Harold Macmillan the words of the poet Browning from "The Lost Leader":
	  "Let him never come back to us!
	  There would be doubt, hesitation and pain.
	  Forced praise on our part—the glimmer of twilight,
	  Never glad confident morning again!"
	That is the consequence of the Butler report.

Alan Beith: I shall not go further into the internal Labour party argument that has opened up and been acknowledged by the Father of the House.
	I did not serve on the Butler committee because my party rightly took the view that it was not allowed to ask, and therefore would not answer, crucial questions about the political context within which the intelligence was considered and the political decisions that may   effectively have been taken. Those decisions go back to neo-Conservative pressures on the Bush Administration, President Bush's false linking of 9/11 to Iraq and the Prime Minister's falsely implied linkage between al-Qaeda and Iraq. In so far as contacts were established, they do not bear the weighty substance put on them. Indeed, the Prime Minister has continued to use the argument that the need to attack Iraq was primarily based on the necessity to deal with a rogue state because of what he described as the
	"nexus between terrorism and WMD".
	When the Intelligence and Security Committee quoted the JIC's assessment that
	"any collapse of the Iraqi regime would increase the risk of chemical and biological warfare technology finding their way into the hands of terrorists",
	the Prime Minister said that he was aware of that:
	"But he believed that there was an alternative risk of leaving a possible nexus between terrorism and WMD and made his judgment accordingly."
	That judgment was wrong, but it was part of the political context.
	Let me put it this way: it is impossible to imagine the Prime Minister deciding not to participate when President Bush decided to launch an invasion of Iraq. Can anyone seriously imagine the Prime Minister saying, "No. I dissent. Britain will not join in"? Equally, it is impossible to imagine the Prime Minister deciding that the current threat to British interests which he perceived were such that we would have gone ahead if President Bush had decided not to.

Robert Wareing: The right hon. Gentleman asked whether a British Prime Minister could say no if an American President decided to go into Iraq. Of course, Harold Wilson did say no over Vietnam. Indeed, Clement Attlee went so far as to see Harry Truman to prevent General MacArthur launching an attack on China way back in 1950.

Alan Beith: I set great store by Britain's alliance with the United States in many respects. I am in no way anti-American. What I am saying is that our alliance with the United States has survived several fundamental disagreements over, say, Vietnam, Suez and the Falklands. However, I still cannot imagine our Prime Minister taking that course of dissent, which puts into perspective the way in which the intelligence was viewed.
	On the intelligence, the Prime Minister wrongly quoted—or at least insufficiently quoted—paragraph 483 of the Butler report.

Alex Salmond: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Alan Beith: No, I want to deal with this point.
	I interrupted the Prime Minister from a sedentary position and he started to respond to me. He quoted the report as saying:
	"senior Al Qaida associate Abu Musab al Zarqawi has established sleeper cells in Baghdad",
	but he did not go on to complete the sentence, which concludes:
	"to be activated during a US occupation of the city."
	The following paragraph states:
	"the JIC made clear that, although there were contacts between the Iraqi regime and Al Qaida, there was no evidence of co-operation."
	Again, the Prime Minister rested too much on very little evidence to suggest a linkage.
	The way in which the Intelligence and Security Committee dealt with some of those matters fed into the Butler report. Indeed, much of what Butler says can be found in two paragraphs of the ISC report of September 2003. It goes into more detail than Butler, including into the intelligence chain. On the weapons of mass destruction and the intelligence that was subsequently withdrawn, intelligence on 11 September was introduced in great haste and provided some confirmation of the dossier already prepared in the minds of Ministers.
	It is not necessary to say much about the Leader of the Opposition's contribution because he sowed the seeds of his own destruction, but I want to dissent from a specific point that he made. He said that the Intelligence and Security Committee had not been told that that intelligence had been withdrawn. That is not the case—the ISC was aware that it had been withdrawn, and the careful wording of paragraph 101, which was dictated by security considerations, states:
	"We have seen that intelligence and understand the basis on which the CDI and the JIC took the view they did."
	That is Mandarin language, but it does not say that we agree with the intelligence, accept it or, indeed, endorse it in any way.
	We were therefore told about that withdrawal of intelligence, but we were not told about the withdrawal of intelligence on the 45-minute claim. In the event, that is not terribly significant, because we demolished much of that claim in our report of September 2003, which stated:
	"The 45 minutes claim, included four times, was . . . likely to attract attention because it was an arresting detail".
	We said, however, that
	"the context of the intelligence and any assessment needed to be explained. The fact that it was assessed to refer to battlefield chemical and biological munitions and their movement on the battlefield, not to any other form of chemical or biological attack, should have been highlighted in the dossier. The omission of the context and assessment allowed speculation as to its exact meaning."
	It was clear at the time that far too much confusion surrounded the claim, and it certainly did not mean what newspaper headlines suggested it did. I do not think that very much effort was put into discounting or dismissing those reports. Ministers have appeared on the "Today" programme a number of times to dismiss things that they believed were wrong and to stop their dissemination, but I do not remember any direct policy to do so in this instance.
	I have some knowledge of, and considerable respect for, the work of the intelligence services, particularly the Secret Intelligence Service. During this saga, however, they were under considerable pressure to produce evidence on a very hard target. In my opinion, they became over-excited by intelligence that seemed to meet that demand from untested sources, some of which were second or third-hand, which is worrying.

John Bercow: I have been listening carefully to the right hon. Gentleman. Given, however, that many Conservative Members believe—this is not intended in a spirit of malice—that naivety and a reluctance to act are defining features of Liberal Democrat foreign policy, does he accept that to many of us the idea that the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Inverness, West (Mr. Kennedy) could ever exercise the statesmanship demonstrated by the Prime Minister is quite unimaginable?

Alan Beith: The hon. Gentleman is trying to make this a partisan debate, unlike a number of hon. Members who have sought to prevent it from becoming such. If he wants the evidence, however, he should look at our support for the no-fly zone and the military action that the right hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) initiated to ensure that Saddam Hussein could not move into areas where he had previously shown his willingness to poison people with the chemical weapons then in his possession. We were in no doubt about the need for such action. Similarly, we believed that the threat of force was a significant factor, which we needed to retain.

Alex Salmond: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Alan Beith: No, I have given way twice, so I have reached the limit for which time is allowed.
	I mentioned my concern about where the SIS went wrong, but I have a greater concern that for the Prime Minister the intelligence was only relevant insofar as it appeared to support a policy that did not depend on it but on a commitment already made to combine with the US in taking out Saddam's regime on grounds that could be applied to several dictators, proliferators, rogue states and failed states, including some of more immediate concern than Iraq, even on the information publicly disseminated at the time. Liberal Democrats have never challenged the Prime Minister's good faith or his conviction that what he was doing was right and in the country's interests. When considering whether to go to war, however, one needs more than good faith and self-belief. One needs good judgment and the determination to be as clear as possible about the evidence and the likely consequence. Both of those were lacking, because the Prime Minister had two overriding considerations. First, he did not want to be the person who might subsequently be criticised for not stopping Saddam Hussein in his tracks. That is a reasonable consideration, but it must be set in the context of what the consequences of military attack would be and what the grounds might be on which we would attack his regime, bearing in mind that there are a number of other evil regimes in the world, some of which present a more immediate threat. That was the first and overriding consideration, conscious or not, in his mind.
	The second overriding consideration was that the Prime Minister did not want to go down in history as the Prime Minister who permanently and fatally fractured the alliance between Britain and the United States. That, I think, was a mistaken judgment, on the grounds that I gave earlier: that Britain and the United States have differed on matters of policy over the years, but there are features to the alliance that are so powerful and enduring that it will outlast particular decisions and particular Administrations. The Prime Minister should have taken more account of that.

Malcolm Savidge: Butler indicates that there was some recent new evidence suggesting an increase in Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, though it suggests that that later proved to be unreliable. However, paragraphs 427 to 428 of the report indicate that any UK policy change did not come about as a result of a new development in the current intelligence on Iraq, and that other countries would have been of more concern from the intelligence. It suggests two reasons for the change of policy.
	The first relates to 11 September and views Iraq in a wider international context. That is an argument to which I shall return. The second reason the report suggests is that we were influenced by the concerns of the US Government. That, surely, is the overriding truth. The decisions of the Bush Administration, as so clearly spelled out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook), were the decisive factor.
	The leadership of both main parties wanted to be close to the United States, partly for honourable reasons—that we should stand by the US after the atrocity of 9/11, and that we should support the US against terrorism and in the action in Afghanistan. I believe there were other factors as well. The right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith), the then Leader of the Opposition, had close personal ties with members of the Bush Administration, and the Government have said repeatedly that they regard it as a major policy endeavour to stay close to the Bush Administration.
	In the United States, after the war, Mr. Rumsfeld said that there was no new evidence really, but the Administration saw things differently through the prism of 9/11. I suspect that Condoleezza Rice told the truth rather more clearly when she told The New Yorker that after the atrocity she called together senior members of the national security council and said,
	"'How do you capitalise on these opportunities to fundamentally change American doctrine and the shape of the world in the wake of September 11?'"
	Rumsfeld, Rice, Cheney, Perle and the rest of the hawks had wanted a war with Iraq for years. Some of them had been arguing for it ever since they thought the first Gulf war had ended too early. That built up during the 1990s, with various reasons being given. It started to become part of the campaign to get rid of Bill Clinton, and it started to become an obsession and almost a shibboleth. It was the way one proved one was a good right-wing Republican. They gave many reasons, though human rights in Iraq was not one of them. Wolfowitz told us that they chose one—weapons of mass destruction—because they could all agree on that. Then they produced a lot of false information to support their case. One thinks of the suggestion that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11 or that he was associated with al-Qaeda, or the lunatic suggestion that he had a fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles carrying biological and chemical weapons with which he intended to attack the US. The Senate committee spelled out how false some of those claims were.
	In the UK, as I said, there was a desire to be close to the Bush Administration. Hutton and Butler, in their own different ways, suggested that that desire influenced the desire for intelligence that would support a more aggressive policy. The September dossier the February "dodgy" dossier, debates, briefings and press conferences surely reflect what Butler said: the division was broken down between assessment and advocacy. Caveats and cautions were left out and risks were overstated.
	In his speech on 18 March, the Prime Minister spelled out the reasons for war, including the breaching of UN resolutions. However, in response to the military threat, the inspectors had said that they were getting much more compliance, although Iraq was probably not, in the words of resolution 1441,
	"co-operating actively, unconditionally and immediately".
	Nevertheless, surely that co-operation was greater than that which we accepted in relation to decommissioning by the IRA, for example. The WMD threat was overestimated and insufficient weight was given to the inspectors' questioning of British intelligence evidence.
	It was suggested that WMD could be given to terrorists. However, the JIC report of 27 November said that there was no intelligence to suggest that Saddam considered using chemical or biological weapons in terrorist attacks. Its report of 10 February said that that threat would only be heightened by an attack on Iraq. I believe that the threat of terrorism has increased as a result of the attack.

Llew Smith: My hon. Friend outlined some of the reasons that the Prime Minister used for going to war, including weapons of mass destruction, terrorism and the breaking of UN resolutions. Could not the same argument be used against Israel? It, too, has weapons of mass destruction. It, too, attacks its neighbours on a daily basis. It, too, is guilty of many humanitarian injustices. It, too, has broken UN resolutions—probably more than any other country in the world.

Malcolm Savidge: I agree with my hon. Friend. The answer that people usually give is, "Ah, but Israel does not have chapter VII resolutions against them", but they never mention the fact that the United States has always vetoed any possibility of that occurring.
	The UK is probably now much more likely to be a terrorist target. Iraq was a hideous tyranny, but it was not associated with al-Qaeda. There is a risk that it could degenerate into the sort of anarchy in which terrorism could thrive. There is a danger that we have increased the appearance that "the west" is against Islam. The pictures from Abu Ghraib could be recruiting posters for al-Qaeda. I fear that the US neo-conservatives have been Osama bin Laden's useful idiots.
	Last week, the Prime Minister said that Iraq is better off without Saddam. However, as the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley) tellingly pointed out, the Prime Minister said in his speech on 18 March:
	"I have never put the justification for action as regime change."—[Official Report, 18 March 2003; Vol. 401, c. 772.]
	There are lessons that should be learned. First and foremost, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Livingston said, containment was working—better, probably, than any of us suspected—in relation to WMD and the prevention of aggression. The neo-conservative agenda is wrong and dangerous. In particular, the concept of pre-emptive war should not set a pattern for the 21st century. We should also learn the lesson that we need more collective and more informed Cabinet government.
	I would say to the Prime Minister that although I respect his strong convictions and his good faith, he misled Parliament and the people into war. Last week, he said that he took full personal responsibility. I hope, for the sake of his reputation, for the sake of the Labour party and for the sake of the British Parliament and the British people, that he considers very carefully the full implications of his own words.

Andrew MacKay: I am delighted that the Foreign Secretary has returned to his place. I know that he is extremely busy, but I want to draw his attention to remarks made earlier by the Father of the House, who rightly said that this is a very important debate. It is a pity that no members of the Cabinet have been present for much of it, especially given that there have been outstanding speeches by Members on both sides of the House with deeply held views.
	The debate is not only important, but overdue. We would not easily have been forgiven had we broken for the summer recess on Thursday without having a full-scale debate, addressed by the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, that gave Parliament the opportunity to reflect not only on why we went to war, but on what is happening in Iraq and on the implications of our actions for what is happening in the middle east and elsewhere. I shall dwell briefly on all those matters.
	Exactly like my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley), I feel let down by the Prime Minister. I voted for the war and I spoke in the debate before that vote, but I now feel that Parliament and the people have been misled. Like many, I had grave doubts.

Tony Baldry: Is it not a fact that, if hon. Members had known then what they know now, the Prime Minister would have had great difficulty in getting the House's approval for war in the way in which he did?

Andrew MacKay: My hon. Friend, with his considerable experience both as a Minister and as the Chairman of the International Development Committee, is absolutely right. If I may, I shall come back to the issue that he raised in more detail in a moment.
	As I was saying, I had grave reservations about the war. In an earlier debate on the middle east, which took place on 16 April 2002, I said:
	"But what has happened in the past two, three, six or nine months that requires military intervention to be considered that has not happened before? We are not told what weapons of mass destruction he has now that he did not have then."—[Official Report, 16 April 2002; Vol. 383, c. 506.]
	Those questions were never satisfactorily answered. In my opening remarks in the debate of 18 March 2003, I said:
	"This is also a very close call for many Members."—[Official Report, 18 March 2003; Vol. 401, c. 803.]
	Many of us entered the Chamber unsure of which way we were going to vote. We could see obvious merit in Saddam Hussein's regime falling; nothing would have pleased us more. Indeed, I do not think that any Member—with the possible exception of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Kelvin (Mr. Galloway), whom we do not see these days—in any way supports Saddam Hussein or condones the dreadful things that he has done to his people.

Alex Salmond: The right hon. Gentleman is quite right; the hon. Member for Glasgow, Kelvin (Mr. Galloway) is not here. In fairness, I do not think that he has ever condoned the actions of Saddam Hussein.

Andrew MacKay: It is entirely up to the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) whether he protects the hon. Member for Glasgow, Kelvin. I would not withdraw a word of what I have just said about him.

Alex Salmond: Why not wait until he is here?

Andrew MacKay: I would have to wait a very long time indeed. With the greatest respect, I do not think that that is a practical option.

John Bercow: Not if my right hon. Friend is to keep within the eight-minute limit, anyway.

Andrew MacKay: Indeed.
	Let me return to the serious issue of whether we should have gone to war. I said at the time that it was a very close call. Many of us had serious reservations about doing so to achieve regime change alone. We also noted carefully that Ministers continued to say that in no circumstances would they go to war to achieve regime change. No matter how much I wanted the regime in Iraq to change, if we go to war for that reason alone, where do we stop?
	Like many hon. Members, I passionately believe that there should be regime change in Zimbabwe. I equally believe that the world would be a much safer place if there were regime change in North Korea. Like all right hon. and hon. Members, I am following events in Sudan very closely, and I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that regime change would help to avoid a catastrophe in that country. But does that mean that we should go to war every time we passionately believe that it would be in the interests of other people to have regime change? I would need to think long and hard and often before being persuaded of that. Of course, the Prime Minister did not even try to persuade me of that in the debate on 18 March last year.
	A second, and much more honourable, reason was put forward by my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), which was that the American alliance is hugely important to this country. I believe that my generation has lived in peace because of that alliance, I value it hugely, and I would not wish to undermine it. But I point out to my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks, the Prime Minister and others that when one is a good and close friend, one occasionally says no, and one occasionally says, "You have it wrong." Previous Prime Ministers, both Labour and Conservative, have said that to Presidents to whom they were very close. That was not a sufficient reason alone for going to war.

John Bercow: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Andrew MacKay: No, because I have taken two interventions and I will lose my time if I do so. I have spotted that.
	Another reason given was the link with terrorism. Several Members, including the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Savidge) who spoke immediately before me, have mentioned that 11 September inevitably traumatised our American friends and allies, and perhaps even unduly influenced the American Administration. What I found reprehensible at the time was Ministers saying that there was a direct link between terrorism—[Interruption.] Let me say this before the Minister for Trade and Investment, the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. O'Brien), leaves the Chamber, as I am referring to him. Again and again, I and other Members asked him at Foreign Office questions what links there were, and what proof there was of any links whatever between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. He responded—uncharacteristically petulantly—by asking how I could second-guess our intelligence services, and effectively told me to go away as my point was of no value. Neither he nor any other Member now believes that Saddam Hussein was linked to al-Qaeda. In fact, al-Qaeda only arrived in Iraq—

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The right hon. Gentleman's time is up.

Helen Liddell: Members have done a lot of rewriting of history this afternoon, and none more so than the Leader of the Opposition. Regrettably, he is not in his place. Leadership is about courage, conscience and consistency. What we saw from him this afternoon was opportunism driven by panic. We saw him denying the judgment of his two predecessors, one of whom spoke most eloquently, and we saw him insult the intelligence of the British people.
	Four months ago, virtually to the day, the same right hon. and learned Gentleman said:
	"What would have been the consequences if we had waited until a direct threat was real and imminent until we acted? Would we have been in a position, militarily as well as politically and diplomatically, to counter it? How could we take the risk that we would find ourselves impotent? The war against Iraq was necessary. It was just. It was, indeed, arguably overdue. And, let us not forget, it was overwhelmingly successful—a judgment which subsequent difficulties do not change."
	That is what the leader of the Conservative party said on 19 March to the News Corporation conference in Cancun. That is not the mark of a leader, a statesman or a politician whom we can take seriously.
	I make the point about others having taken the opportunity to rewrite history, and I refer the House to the motion that we debated prior to going to war. It was not about intelligence. It was about the breach of United Nations resolutions. It stated that the House
	"notes that in the 130 days since Resolution 1441 was adopted Iraq has not co-operated actively, unconditionally and immediately with the weapons inspectors, and has rejected the final opportunity to comply and is in further material breach of its obligations under successive mandatory UN Security Council Resolutions".
	The debate that night was about the breach of UN resolutions, which had been going on for 12 years. It was about the intent that Saddam Hussein was known to have, as has been proved in the Butler report, to acquire further weapons of mass destruction, and it was about his history.

Tony Baldry: Is there not a flaw in the right hon. Lady's argument? The Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, quite honourably and quite rightly, tried to secure a second resolution from the United Nations. When that failed, they simply sought to return to a previous resolution and say that there had been breaches of it, and to use that as a justification for war. One of the lessons that we must learn from this whole exercise is that we ignore the authority of the United Nations at our peril.

Helen Liddell: I reject the first part of what the hon. Gentleman has said. Resolution 1441 was, in itself, clear and unambiguous in the responsibilities that it placed on Saddam Hussein. I wholeheartedly agree with the second part, however. I believe that those who oppose the action taken in relation to Iraq must answer for what the consequences would have been for the United Nations had we yet again allowed Saddam Hussein to prevaricate. The Prime Minister, with the Foreign Secretary, came very close to securing that further resolution—I think it was the 18th, not the second. Another Government said that regardless of what was in that resolution, if there was a deadline they would not support it. Hence there was no chance of proceeding with the resolution.
	It is clear and incontrovertible that Saddam Hussein was in breach of the United Nations resolution. In January and again in March, in the famous 173-page document, Dr. Hans Blix set out all that would be required of Saddam Hussein were he to comply. The international community united in resolution 1441—on the basis of broadly similar intelligence throughout the world—in saying that Saddam Hussein was in breach of resolutions, and was known to be seeking to develop his weapons of mass destruction even further.
	As Lord Butler has said, it would be a rash person indeed who would conclude that there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I must admit that for me there is a question mark over what happened between the carrying of resolution 1441 and the action that took place the following March. What actually happened on the ground? In that connection, intelligence would be important. Much has been done to decry our intelligence services this afternoon, but they do an extremely difficult job in very dangerous circumstances. Those who did obtain intelligence—and it should be remembered that not all of it has been discredited—could have paid for it with their lives.
	The reality is that the decisions made by the Government and the House in relation to the situation in Iraq were based on a breach of UN resolutions. At that time, we also debated intention. The Butler report makes clearer than even I had understood—and I was in the Cabinet at the time—the extent of Saddam Hussein's intention further to acquire nuclear weapons. Many of us discounted the whole issue of nuclear weapons because of an allegedly forged document that had originally come from a journalist. That issue went off the boil.

Edward Leigh: Does the right hon. Lady believe that the concept of deterrence would not have worked? Whether Saddam Hussein possessed such weapons or not, if we had had the concept of deterrence he would never have been able to use them against us or our allies. On that basis, this was a wrong war.

Helen Liddell: The alleged deterrence had gone on for some 12 years. When would a line be drawn? When would we say that enough was enough?
	The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) said that the Prime Minister was undoubtedly doing a deal with President Bush. Let me draw his attention to what the Prime Minister said on 24 February 1998:
	"We should never forget that if we do not stop Saddam Hussein acting in breach of his agreement on weapons of mass destruction, the losers will be not just those threatened by him, but the authority and standing of the UN itself."
	I understand that my right hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) was sitting next to the Prime Minister on the Front Bench when he said that. Later in the same speech, the Prime Minister quoted Kofi Annan as saying:
	"You can achieve much by diplomacy, but you can achieve a lot more when diplomacy is backed by firmness and force."—[Official Report, 24 February 1998; Vol. 307, c. 174–75.]
	I believe that if we had succeeded in securing a final resolution—if the international community had had the strength to stick together—Saddam Hussein could have been deposed in a peaceful way. Let me refer the House to what my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) has said again and again. She said that those who say that containment was working are ignoring its consequences for the people of Iraq on the ground. It is on the collective conscience of this House that year after year, we turned a blind eye to what Saddam Hussein was doing. Now, we have a responsibility to move forward.
	We are debating, among other things, the fourth inquiry into the circumstances surrounding our taking action against Iraq. Four inquiries have proved that the Government acted in good faith. Lord Butler, in particular, highlights the extent to which Saddam was in breach, had intention and had the history; and Lord Hutton has made it clear that there were no attempts to embellish the intelligence in the original dossier. I remind the House that when we debated that dossier, the feeling was that it was dull, contained no killer punch and was very low key. The reality was that it was not about proving a case for war, but about proving the arguments that we were taking to the United Nations. I further remind Members that during the discussions that took place in the House that night, the 45 minutes issue was never mentioned.
	On that issue, perhaps I might be heretical and say that frankly, I do not care whether the weapons in question were battlefield weapons or long-range weapons. Would those who do care mind saying to the families and friends of those who died in the first world war as a result of the use of mustard gas that it was acceptable to use such a weapon because it was being deployed only on the battlefield? Sir Richard Dearlove, chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, made it clear in giving evidence to the Hutton inquiry that he believed that the evidence in question had come from a credible source. The 45 minutes issue only became an issue after the notorious BBC broadcast.
	We are dealing today with very serious issues, and the debate has become partisan, which I regret. [Interruption.] I should point out to Conservative Members that the Leader of the Opposition's speech was the speech not of a true leader, but of a man on the run who is seeking a bandwagon to jump on. It was unacceptable and it should not have been made in a debate of this seriousness.

Alex Salmond: I am sure that the right hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Mrs. Liddell) will acquire some diplomatic skills before she takes up her forthcoming post. She regrets the partisan nature of the debate; none the less, I am sure that that aspect of her speech will stand her in great stead in her new post.
	Because of where I am located in the House, I am able to see the Prime Minister's face when he is present. An interesting if not particularly important vignette occurred today that the hon. and learned Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews) should perhaps know about. When he tried to intervene to ask the Prime Minister a question earlier today, I looked at the latter's face as he turned down the hon. and learned Gentleman's request. There was a look of exasperation, consternation and dislike on the Prime Minister's face. If I were the hon. and learned Gentleman, I would not wait too long for preferment from this Prime Minister. However, I also detected a look of fear. The Prime Minister did not want to take that intervention because he knew that it would get to the nub of some of the questions that the rest of us want answered.
	The hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) asked the Leader of the Opposition whether he thought that we had been deliberately deceived. The answer was in no man's land, which is where the Leader of the Opposition spent most of his speech. None the less, I want to answer that question. I believe that we were deliberately deceived, and I shall present the evidence that leads me to that conclusion.
	On the 45 minutes claim, a week before the dossier was published Jonathan Powell wrote to John Scarlett saying that the dossier
	"does nothing to demonstrate a threat",
	never mind "an imminent threat". One week later, we had the Prime Minister's foreword to the dossier; and that day's Standard ran the headline, "45 Minutes From Attack".
	Now the Government, the Foreign Secretary and other Ministers tell us that nobody was bothered about the 45 minutes claim: it was hardly reported at the time. I am sure that Alastair Campbell was on the phone immediately to the editor of the London Standard to correct the wrongful impression that somehow had been conveyed by the dossier. I believe that the 45-minute threat was presented in the unqualified way that it was to produce exactly that headline and exactly that result.
	Then, of course, there is the "Panorama" programme, hardly spoken about these days, which perhaps touches on the point made by the right hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts a few minutes ago. It took place in February 2003 in the run-up to the second United Nations resolution. What the Prime Minister told Jeremy Paxman and a studio audience, not once but on four separate occasions, was that the only circumstances in which the country would go to war without a second UN resolution would be if the inspectors concluded that they could not progress their work and one country had an unreasonable veto. The inspectors actually asked for more time and the bulk of the Security Council wanted to continue the process. The Prime Minister somehow forgot his claims of February 2003.
	Perhaps more serious are the questions aired by the right hon. Members for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) and for Livingston (Mr. Cook). We are expected to believe that at no stage did the Prime Minister examine the 45-minute claim and that at no stage did it ever occur to John Scarlett or anyone else that somehow the question of the withdrawal of sources for WMD should be reported to the politicians who were under examination from a variety of Committees of the House. My colleague, the hon. Member for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr (Adam Price), received a parliamentary answer today from the Foreign Secretary on precisely that point. In that answer, the Foreign Secretary said:
	"I became aware of the withdrawal of this reporting when I agreed, in response to a request from SIS on 8 September 2003, that the reports in question should be disclosed to the Intelligence and Security Committee."
	There is some confusion about that, because the ISC told The Independent a few days ago that a senior member was not aware of the withdrawal of the evidence. Can I ask the Foreign Secretary when he was intending to tell the rest of us about that? When was he going to tell the House—the hon. Members who, unfortunately, voted by a majority in favour of this conflict—that the clear, unmistakeable evidence sweeping across the Prime Minister's desk had actually been withdrawn by the Secret Intelligence Service?

John Gummer: Does not the hon. Gentleman find it very peculiar that most people out there who supported the war thought that the Government knew things that they did not know, but it turned out that the Government did not know things that they ought to have known?

Alex Salmond: It is not so curious because, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, the Prime Minister kept trying to give the impression that there was a mass of evidence, if only he could disclose it and not jeopardise his sources. The impression was conveyed that if only we were able to see what he had seen, there would be no mistaking the case for war. The reality is that the evidence was, at best, fragmented. As the right hon. Members for Richmond, Yorks and for Livingston both concluded—in a first-time and probably only historic agreement between those two right hon. Gentlemen—the intelligence, of course, had nothing to do with the causes and reasons for going to war. Unfortunately for the conscience of the Labour party, the Prime Minister's reason was not to depose Saddam Hussein either. It was to stay close, shoulder to shoulder, with the United States of America and pay the blood price for that alliance.
	I accept that there could be an argument for staying close to a major ally, but not so close as we have reached in the current ridiculous position. The foreign policy of this country will not be decided in the general election next May, but in the American election this coming November. If "President Gore" had acceded to the White House and pursued what we know to be his policy, war in Iraq would have been viewed as a distraction from the war against terrorism. The policy of this Government would then have been fundamentally different. I do not believe in my country right or wrong, but the Government believe in another country right or wrong. It is a ridiculous, humiliating and thoroughly immoral position to be in.   
	Lastly, we in politics all play games about unemployment figures, health statistics and the rest. However, this is not the normal argy-bargy of politics; it is not about moulding statistics or presenting arguments in the best possible way. This is about 13,000 civilian deaths. Many British soldiers are dead, and American casualties are approaching 1,000. That is the blood price that is being paid for the Prime Minister's actions. He has played with other people's chips, and he has done so in a disastrous fashion.
	When people examine the matter, they will know the reality. The vast majority sense the deliberate deception at the heart of the process. [Interruption.] Those on the Treasury Bench may laugh, but the people of this country will judge in a much higher court than that of Lords Hutton or Butler, and their judgment on the Prime Minister and his Administration will be much harsher.

Marsha Singh: I am grateful to have the opportunity to speak in this most important and serious debate.
	Those of us who opposed the war from the very beginning did not need a Hutton or a Butler report. We knew that this country was not under attack or in any imminent danger of attack, and that no ally of ours was either. Therefore, war was wrong.
	I shall quote what appeared on the front page of The Independent on Thursday 15 July. It summed up the headlines of the Butler report in a most apt and appropriate way. The newspaper stated that the intelligence was flawed, that the dossier was dodgy, that Dr. Brian Jones was vindicated, that Iraqi links to al-Qaeda were unproven, that the public were misled, and that the case for war was exaggerated. The newspaper asked who was to blame: its answer was no one. I shall return to that point later.
	However, is it a coincidence that the US Senate Intelligence Committee produced exactly the same findings about the quality of US intelligence as did Butler about UK intelligence? What is going on? Was it agreed on both sides of the Atlantic that the intelligence reports should be spun and beefed up?
	If we went to war in good faith, we must accept that that good faith was based on a complete misjudgment about weapons of mass destruction. That much is clear now, but there is a price to pay when a misjudgment is made, and the price for this war has been heavy. House of Commons Library estimates of 16 July show that 885 US and 60 British military personnel have died. There have also been 60 deaths among the other coalition partners.
	Estimates of Iraqi casualties are difficult to obtain, because the Americans do not want to know. As a result, they do not know the figures, and the same is true for Britain. However, the website iraqbodycount.net estimated that between 11,164 and 13,118 Iraqi civilians had died up to 16 July. It puts civilian post-war casualties at between 9,015 and 10,503. In addition, there have been 111 deaths among foreign contractors, and nine such people are known to be missing. That is an appalling loss of human life, based on good faith—and on misjudgment.

Edward Leigh: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that another price has been paid, and it is the devastating loss of confidence in the western world on the part of the Arab and Muslim world? Our Prime Minister was let down by the US Administration: he was promised progress on the road map, but it has not materialised.

Marsha Singh: I shall come to that point shortly. There is another price—the financial cost—although it is obviously much less than the human price. According to the Library, up to the end of March we had spent £2.5 billion, and another £1.3 billion was available from April. The US Congress has appropriated £100 billion to cover the US military operations in Iraq. The cost of operations to this country is £125 million a month. I cannot speak for the Americans, but I can speak for my constituents, who would rather have seen our billions of pounds spent on schools, hospitals or pensioners, not on bombs, bullets and bloodshed.
	What about the war on terror? Every morning and every night we see on our screens the complete lack of success that the war had in the war on terror. A recent book by a CIA agent, entitled "Imperial Hubris", says:
	"Bin Laden saw the invasion of Iraq as a Christmas gift he never thought he'd get."
	It also says that the invasion of Iraq was an
	"avaricious, premeditated, unprovoked war against a foe who posed no immediate threat."
	We will never win the war on terror by waging war against Muslim countries. The Muslim world is rightly bemused, both in this country and across the world. We have attacked Saddam Hussein for not following UN resolutions—

David Winnick: If the accusation is that we are anti-Muslim, can my hon. Friend explain why we decided, outside of the United Nations, to liberate Kosovo to stop the killing of Muslims? We did not go in for Christians, Jews, Sikhs or Hindus. My hon. Friends the Members for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) and for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews) were so opposed to our action, but it was taken to stop the constant killing of Muslims. If we are anti-Muslim, how does my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Singh) explain that?

Marsha Singh: I never said that we were anti-Muslim. I am trying to explain how the Muslim world sees our actions and the American actions. The Muslim world sees the west standing on the sidelines for five and more decades while the Palestinians have been persecuted by the Israeli state. Palestinian land has been under occupation for decades by the Israeli state, and we have turned a blind eye or mouthed platitudes as succour for the Palestinians. That is no succour for the Palestinians or the Muslim community.

Lorna Fitzsimons: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Marsha Singh: Not now.
	For five and a bit decades, we have seen the Kashmiri people denied the right to self-determination, irrespective of UN resolutions. We have seen human rights abuses, murders and rapes in Kashmir, but the Muslim world sees the west standing idly by and turning a blind eye. We have said that we will do our best to promote our dialogue, but we have done nothing for the Kashmiri people.
	While the Russians wage savage war against Muslim Chechens, the west and the international community stand idly by and turn a blind eye.

Jack Straw: It is incorrect for my hon. Friend to say that we have stood idly by in respect of Kashmir. I hope that he welcomes the rapprochement that has now taken place between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, in which we have been actively engaged.

Marsha Singh: I do welcome that rapprochement, but as the Muslim community sees it—and as I see it—there has been talk but no action in all the areas I have mentioned. The way to win the war on terror is to let the Palestinians have their homeland, let the Kashmiri people have the right to self-determination and stop the savagery of the Russians in Chechnya. We have lost the trust of Muslims across the world. That is a heavy price for this country to pay. Indeed, we might have all our contractors in Saudi Arabia chased out by terrorists in months to come.
	The war has not made the world a safer place: it has made it immeasurably more dangerous. What has been the cost to my party? Members have left in droves and voters have deserted in their thousands. The evidence of that was here today in the person of the new hon. Member for Leicester, South (Mr. Gill). Only the Prime Minister can draw a line under this affair for our party. Many of us who opposed the war believe that it has besmirched our beliefs, compromised our principles and disfigured our souls. The desert sands are stained in crimson, a crimson that will never be washed away. The souls of the dead and the consciences of the living cry out in anguish because of that premeditated, pre-emptive war, based on a lust for revenge by one leader and political vanity in another. Somebody is responsible for the carnage and waste of life. The buck, as we all know, stops at the top. It is time for the buck to stop and it is time for our troops to come home.

John Gummer: There is no doubt that Iraq is better off without Saddam Hussein. There is no doubt either that Zimbabwe would be better off without Mugabe and Burma would be better off without its murderous regime. We could change the lives of people in North Korea and the Sudan by regime change. But we have not chosen to do so, because the fundamental issue is that of the just war. Once one takes into one's hands the ability to wage war when it is not the last and only answer when one faces an imminent threat, one offers the opportunity to everyone else to do the same thing. We say we can do it because we are the sort of people who would not do it unless we had a very good reason. That is our argument, but it is not a true argument.
	I am ashamed when people say that we could not continue with containment because it takes so long. Actually, that is the message. If we want a peaceful world, we have to go the extra mile. We have to go on and on until there is no alternative to force. Otherwise, we have no moral position to take. The Prime Minister let this nation down when he tried to pretend that his was a moral position. He was opposed by those who know a bit about morality—the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Dalai Lama and even the president of the Free Church Federal Council all said that he was wrong—but he had to say that, because otherwise he would not have received the vote of this House.
	I voted against the war because I had heard the Prime Minister on such matters before. I pressed him again and again to give me a straight answer on the bombing of the aspirin factory in the Sudan. He never gave me that answer. He constantly refused to answer the direct question and finally told me that there were to be no more questions because it was a matter of national security. He was not willing to be straight, and the people of Britain know that.
	We have to remember that the Prime Minister told us that we should judge his integrity not simply on the facts but on whether they were properly relayed. It cannot be said that the facts were properly relayed, nor can it be said that the Government, who took, and take, every opportunity to batter the BBC and the media, took any action whatever to counter the generally understood view that we were 45 minutes from disaster. In other words, there was an immediacy at the heart of their argument that did not exist.
	The problem is that once one accepts the theory of the preventive war, one opens the gates for everyone to claim it in every case—India, Pakistan or any country with a long-standing grudge or a serious problem. All can claim that in their own case, although not in that of others, they are acting to prevent war. That is why the problem is fundamental. One of the most dispiriting and miserable moments I can recall was during Prime Minister's questions last week, when the Prime Minister, in a carefully prepared piece of theatricism, refused to answer the comments of my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition and engaged in what can only be described as a knockabout affair. A knockabout affair—when we were talking about something that could lead to more and more cases of people taking into their own hands the decision to wage war on their neighbours.

Calum MacDonald: The right hon. Gentleman refers to the notion that the Prime Minister used the concept of a looming threat as part of the case for war. Other Members have also cited that as part of the 45-minutes argument. However, the right hon. Gentleman will recall that during the debate on the dossier the Prime Minister said:
	"'Why now?', people ask. I agree that I cannot say that this month or next, even this year or next, Saddam will use his weapons."—[Official Report, 24 September 2002; Vol. 390, c. 5.]
	The notion of a looming threat was never put forward as a case for war—[Hon. Members: "Pull the other one!"] The Prime Minister's statement was that there was no looming threat in that month or the next, nor even in the next year. The case for war was based on the fact that Saddam was in contravention of UN resolutions. Containment was not a harmless or innocuous option to keep him on the hook; it cost much greater loss of life than the war.

John Gummer: But the Prime Minister has now admitted that there was no such threat. That is what he said in answer to questions last Thursday. There was no looming threat and he said that it would have been perfectly possible to continue the policy of containment. Containment policies are long-winded and difficult and it is not easy to keep people on board, but they are the proper action of a nation that believes in peace.
	The concept of a just war is crucial in our world, which is why I find it difficult that some of my hon. Friends, who are keen on the moral issue, do not recognise that no moral leader upholds the war as just—only politicians do that—and that should make mere politicians just a little wary of wearing the cope and garb of morality.

Mike Gapes: The right hon. Gentleman is hawking his conscience around and taking a position that implies that people who voted for the war are somehow responsible for an immoral act. Would he have been content for the policy of containment to continue and for half a million more Iraqi children to die? How would that go down with his conscience?

John Gummer: If the hon. Gentleman had said we must launch a battle in Zimbabwe, if he had said that he wanted troops sent to Burma or Rwanda—of course, none of those countries are oil-rich nations—and if he had said, week in and week out, that it was time we enforced UN resolutions in Israel, perhaps I would accept his words. I do not suggest that the Iraqi regime was anything but horrific. I am merely saying that for a country such as ours not to uphold the historic, moral standards of the just war is to open the gates to the most devastating and continuous use by others of our example for their behaviour in circumstances of which we, as yet, know nothing.
	I want to suggest something very simple: everybody knows that we went to war because it was decided a long time ago, perhaps even before the election of President Bush, that the middle east was due for a reorganisation, and 9/11—that horrific occasion—provided, as Rumsfeld so clearly indicated, a new focus for decisions on such matters. The Government were looking for reasons to stand side by side with people who had already decided that, whatever the reasons, they would go to war.
	That is why I want to return to the claims about battlefield weapons and 45 minutes. Of course, such weapons are horrific, but that was not the claim; it was that there was an imminent threat of that kind to us and our allies. That is why I think that the Prime Minister is guilty.

Jack Straw: I know of no occasion when the Prime Minister, or any senior Minister, used the word "imminent".

Hon. Members: What about "current"?

John Gummer: Current is even more imminent than imminent. Current is now; imminent is tomorrow. The Prime Minister did not ask what that meant in the context of WMD. He failed to ask that question. I was a Minister for 16 years and I would not have asked so few questions about a new arrangement for dealing with chickens.
	When the chairman of Shell used information that he was given about the company's resources and found subsequently that the information was wrong, he had to go—although he had misled no one in any way. The Prime Minister failed to give us the caveats. He told us that which misled us. That is why he has to go.

Donald Anderson: It is for theologians to set out the broad principles of a just war, but it is for politicians to make the decisions, often in messy and uncertain circumstances. Even theologians recognise that there can be just wars, when everything else has been exhausted and when there is the capability to do something. It has been said that we will not go into Zimbabwe, but there are questions of capacity, bases and so on. Just war, yes; but the issue is more than a theological one—practical politicians have to do their best in difficult circumstances.
	In the Foreign Office, Mandarin is classified as a difficult language. We have seen today that when mandarins speak, there can be very different interpretations, depending on one's starting point.
	I was glad that the right hon. Members for Bracknell (Mr. Mackay) and for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley) mentioned the work of the Foreign Affairs Committee, because we can at least agree that, by and large, our reports on Iraq have stood the test of time. I shall just give a flavour of some of the reports. Again, on an all-party, unanimous basis, we concluded:
	"Iraq remains the greatest threat to a wider peace in the"—
	middle east—
	"region."
	We warned that,
	"if military action is to be taken against Iraq . . . the objectives will have to be . . . clearly defined, and a full justification will have to be provided".
	We said that the 24 September dossier as a whole
	"was probably as complete and accurate as the Joint Intelligence Committee could make it, consistent with protecting sources, but that it contained undue emphasis for a document of its kind."
	Clearly, at this interim stage, it is difficult to step aside and consider what future historians will make of the Iraq issue. Much will depend, in my judgment, on the way in which the current situation in Iraq evolves.

Alex Salmond: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Donald Anderson: No, no. I have hardly started.
	Yet the Iraq issue is clearly a defining moment for this Parliament, for our relations with the United States and for the Prime Minister's standing. Judgments had to be made on the basis of intelligence, which is naturally never conclusive; but what many commentators fail to appreciate is that there are consequences of action and consequences of inaction, as we saw in Srebrenica and in Rwanda. If no action had been taken, Saddam Hussein would still be in power. He would still be President. He would still be continuing, as the Butler committee concluded, his strategic intent to pursue banned weapons programmes, his illicit research and development and procurement activities and his development of ballistic missiles. By our action, in my judgment, we have led to certain other positive changes—certainly in Libya, probably in Saudi Arabia and possibly in North Korea.

Anne Campbell: Has my right hon. Friend's Committee assessed the threat of Iraq against some of the other threats in the world, such as the continuing conflict in Israel and Palestine?

Donald Anderson: There is a very difficult balance to make. I would certainly ask my hon. Friend to await the publication of our next report, on the morning of 29 July, as it covers the Israel-Palestine situation. I look forward to seeing her there, during the recess, to hear our conclusions.
	The truth is that the Prime Minister took a strategic decision to side with the US, both in principle and on the basis that the decision bought some influence with the US. That is clearly debatable, yes, in terms of the middle east and the UN course. An isolated and isolationist US would be a much greater danger to our interests than an engaged US.

Alex Salmond: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Donald Anderson: No.
	That is the background to Butler, whose leitmotiv is clearly that the Government acted in good faith. The Butler committee had access to all the intelligence. It interviewed a large number of witnesses, including six former chairmen of the Joint Intelligence Committee. Of course, it had the benefit of hindsight, which gives 20:20 vision. The key conclusions exonerate the Prime Minister. It said that the dossier was not intended to make the case for war, that it was founded on assessments available at the time and that the intelligence in the dossier was not knowingly embellished. It effectively supported Hutton; it did not support the BBC and Gilligan. However, on page 86, the report says the dossier did not contain the health warnings that related to the limited intelligence that was available.

Robert Marshall-Andrews: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Donald Anderson: No, I want to move on.
	If the Prime Minister is to be criticised, surely it would be on the basis that he did not sufficiently rigorously question the intelligence that was put to him. The report says that the dossier was an unprecedented exercise in public information, but that, in retrospect, it was probably misconceived and is unlikely to be repeated in that form.
	On the intelligence, other countries shared the same broad conclusions. Butler concluded that the JIC assessments were not pulled in any direction to meet policy needs and that there was no deliberate distortion, and so on—save, of course, for the failure of the 45-minute claim—yet there were failures. Dr. Blix said in terms that the best information was given, but nothing was there.
	On weapons of mass destruction, perhaps the Prime Minister now regrets putting so much emphasis on WMD, as opposed to the UN resolutions and human rights, but Butler is clear that Saddam Hussein had the strategic intent to pursue banned weapons programmes and was carrying out illicit research and development. Even now, in his judgment, it is premature—or "rash", as he says—to reach conclusions.
	All that said, I remain personally puzzled by a number of questions. Why Iraq? Presumably the answer must relate to the UN Security Council resolutions. Was war inevitable? Clearly, if Saddam Hussein had at the last minute seen those forces massing at his frontiers and allowed full co-operation with UNMOVIC, there would not have been war—it would have been wholly impossible for the Government to persuade the British people to have gone in. Where have the weapons gone? Have they been looted or concealed? What is the sufficient explanation? Why did Saddam Hussein not come clean if he had no weapons when the US and the coalition forces were massing at his frontiers and the UN resolution 1441 said that it was his last chance?
	Butler's key conclusion was that the Government acted in good faith, and the question for us now, after four reports, is whether we continue to look at the past, turning over stones in the hope that we might find something; or given that Iraq is now on a knife edge and could go either way, do we therefore keep on looking as though, somehow, a silver bullet will be found that will harm the Government's case?
	We have toppled a brutal dictator, who had been warned for 12 years by successive UN Security Council resolutions, culminating in resolution 1441, which gave him a last chance. Whatever may have been the decisions and divisions when we came to the vote, surely we now face the biggest historical task. Are we ready to meet the challenge of helping to create and build a better Iraq? That surely is the key question that should now face the House and members of the coalition.

Patrick Cormack: I hope that we can all at least agree with the concluding sentiments and remarks of the right hon. Member for Swansea, East (Donald Anderson), the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
	This has been the most sober, sombre debate that I can remember for a very long time. We have heard two members of the Prime Minister's party call explicitly for his resignation and another—the hon. Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Singh), who made a very powerful speech that brought a new dimension to our debate—call implicitly for his resignation.
	We have heard Conservative Members, who supported the war with the same degree of steadfastness as I did, regretting their decision and saying that, in fact, if they had known what we now know, they would have voted otherwise. Those of us who did support the war, and who do support the war, have a duty to examine our consciences and decide where we go from here.
	I do not regret the vote that I cast on 18 March last year. I voted as I did for the reasons that my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) gave in a very powerful and characteristically witty speech. I voted as I did because I wanted to see the end of a brutal dictatorship. I voted recognising that the fact that I could not ensure the removal of every dictator of whom I disapprove was no reason for not voting to remove one who could be removed.
	As one who had ploughed a very lonely furrow over Bosnia, when the Government whom I supported were in power, and who felt deeply ashamed by the pusillanimous attitude of the then British Government, not supported by the then Opposition—save for a few doughty souls, such as the hon. Member for Western Isles (Mr. MacDonald)—I felt that I did not want to repeat that mistake.
	I also felt that the Prime Minister acted with extraordinary courage for the leader of the Labour party—a party with a very honourable tradition of pacifism and a less honourable tradition of anti-Americanism. I thought that the leadership that he gave was of a national character and that it deserved support. Nothing that I have heard or read since has persuaded me that I was wrong. Therefore, I still believe that the decision taken on 18 March last year was correct. I regret that there has been on the Conservative Benches a degree of nit-picking, although I absolve my right hon.   and learned Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr.   Ancram), who is on the Front Bench. It is important that we now look at what happened and where we should go.

Harry Cohen: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Patrick Cormack: I will in a moment.
	There can be no hon. Member who voted for the war who is not deeply distressed and ashamed by the inexcusable, brutal treatment of prisoners. That defaces our cause and diminishes our stature. We all should feel a degree of collective shame about that. That most of those incidents appear to have been perpetrated by American troops does not lessen the anguish that we should feel.
	We should all feel a degree of regret at the way in which the reconstruction of Iraq was perhaps not thought through as carefully as it might have been, although I believe that there has been much black propaganda and that things in Iraq are better than many would have us believe. However, we also have to address the fundamental ethos of Government in this country and why it is that the Prime Minister, who in my view behaved honourably and did not deceive the House or the country, is now held in much lower esteem than he was.
	I offer the House an analogy. A little over a year ago, the Prime Minister, sitting in his room and thinking of his reshuffle, decided to get rid of the office of Lord Chancellor. He thought that he would like to do that because he is a broad brush man—he is not a man for detail. He did not realise the implications of that decision. I fear that, in the lead-up to war, he was perhaps a little careless when it came to the intelligence. He was passionately convinced of the need for war. He was absolutely convinced that it was right for this country to take the action that was taken, and I think that he was right. He was less than careful perhaps in the way in which he studied some of the intelligence that came before him. I believe that it is that cavalier disdain for the facts, that unwillingness to think things through in detail, that has landed him in the position he is in today.

Alex Salmond: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Patrick Cormack: How could I resist?

Alex Salmond: I understand that the hon. Gentleman thinks that the Prime Minister is a broad brush man, but Jonathan Powell and Alastair Campbell are not broad brush men. What exactly were they doing with their comments and interference in the dossiers with which we were presented?

Patrick Cormack: It is all very well to criticise those below. We should all recognise that every Prime Minister, certainly in my time, has had a kitchen Cabinet or the equivalent thereof. Every Prime Minister has had a few people he or she has trusted rather more than others, and sometimes those people have been a bit strange. I will not give the House a catalogue because we all know what I am talking about, but the point implicit in the hon. Gentleman's remark is that he believes that the Prime Minister was far too informal. Indeed, I believe that Butler does too, but the former head of the civil service would, would he not? We must look at the matter in perspective.
	What we face as a House collectively is a serious situation. Our troops are still in Iraq. They have served the country with enormous bravery and distinction. They deserve our united backing. There is an interim regime in Iraq. It may not be perfect but it is infinitely better than what was there before and it deserves our backing. There are elections promised in Iraq. It is in all our interests that they should take place.
	I listened with great respect and interest to what the hon. Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Singh) said about his Muslim friends, but as one of those who led the battle to save Muslim friends in Bosnia, I think that I can say this to him: "Please go and talk to your constituents. Neither the British Government in particular nor the House of Commons in general is anti-Muslim, but it is in the interests of all who believe in freedom and democracy and a peaceful world that what is happening in Iraq should succeed and that terrorism should be defeated."
	As we rise for the summer recess, I hope that we can exorcise the partisan spirit that has been present, perfectly understandably, for much of the debate. I hope that we can unite in supporting our troops and the people who are struggling towards a better system in Iraq. If we can do that, recognising and respecting the differences that divided us on 18 March last year and which have divided us since, we will not have served ourselves badly.

Michael Meacher: The hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) has anguished his conscience before us and has portrayed the process and the leadership that took us to war in a characteristically generous and magnanimous way. I am sure that he is deeply sincere, but we have been taken to war on grounds that many people now regard as deceptive. The issue in this debate more than in any other discussion that has taken place is accountability. That is now paramount.
	The most striking characteristic of the Butler report, as many hon. Members have said, is the disjunction between analysis and judgment. It catalogues a litany of failures and then pulls all its punches by declaring that in effect no one is to blame. George Tenet was sacked as head of the CIA for intelligence failures over Iraq, but John Scarlett, who is responsible for exactly the same intelligence failures in this country, is still recommended by the report for promotion, despite all the damning evidence in the report to the contrary. It is a very British establishment charade, but as an exercise in accountability, which is the crux of what is needed, it is completely unacceptable.
	The facts, which I think are no longer seriously in dispute, are stark. The United States went to war over Iraq both because of oil and for reasons of American control of the middle east region, set out clearly in a "Project for the New American Century" document published for the Bush election team in September 2000. As we now know from United States Treasury Secretary O'Neill, that war was planned from the first days of the Bush Administration. Then 9/11 provided the pretext for launching it, as the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) said.
	The United Kingdom went to war over Iraq because President Bush wanted British support. At the Crawford summit in April 2002, the Prime Minister in effect committed to providing that, publicly pledging to stand shoulder to shoulder with President Bush. From that point on, the assessment of intelligence data conflated analysis into advocacy in order to find a rationale for the war that had already been decided on for other reasons.

David Winnick: If my right hon. Friend whom I respect and he should not take this remark personally—felt so strongly at the time, the inevitable question, which he realises I am going to ask, is: why did he not resign from the Government?

Michael Meacher: I believed what the Prime Minister said so categorically and authoritatively. I thought that he spoke with great authority, and like so many others in this House and the country, I thought that he had access to a repository of intelligence data to which none of us has access; and that if he was so certain and spoke with such assurance, we had to accept what he said. I am quite prepared to admit that I also supported the war because I have long believed passionately in the principle of military intervention for humanitarian purposes. Yes, I believe in that, but I am deeply uneasy, as I was at the time, that there are no international criteria that give legitimacy for taking such action in many other cases, as has been pointed out.

Paul Flynn: The Butler report makes it clear that what are described as excellent papers were prepared with all the caveats in them for the Cabinet Committees and members of the Cabinet to see. Butler says that they did not see those papers, and that that impaired their ability to make a correct judgment. Obviously my right hon. Friend did not see the papers, but was he aware of their existence? Does he think that, if he had read them, he might have come to a different conclusion?

Michael Meacher: We all have to assume that, if that material had been made available, a different judgment would have been made. There is no doubt about that.

John Gummer: Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that he, like many others, thought that the Prime Minister knew more than he was able to say? Is not the real problem that it all turns out that we knew more than he was able to say?

Michael Meacher: I think that that is the case. Indeed, if I can develop my argument, I shall go on to say that that is exactly the point to which I think the House needs to give its attention.
	The decision having been made to go to war, Whitehall provided a briefing that any rationale depended on being able to show incontrovertible evidence of "large-scale" activity by Iraq in weapons of mass destruction. However, because the UN inspectors left in 1998, the evidence was almost non-existent. That is the root of the problem. The CIA admitted that its resources on Iraq were "thin", and the JIC had already concluded in March 2002, as has been repeated many times in the Chamber, that intelligence on Iraq's WMD and ballistic programmes was "sporadic and patchy".
	The key point is that, in the evidence put together over the crucial five months from the Crawford summit until the publication of the September dossier to justify the war, we now know that all the specific data were flawed. As we now know, the inventory of chemical and biological weapons and weapons parts that the Prime Minister presented to the House dealt with weapons unaccounted for since the first Gulf war, 12 years before. They were not presented as weapons unaccounted for, however; they were presented as weapons that were believed definitely to be currently possessed by Saddam.

John Bercow: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Michael Meacher: I shall not give way any further.
	The 45-minute claim referred to battlefield nuclear weapons, but the impression was given that the threat went much wider. Accordingly, when it was reported thus—this was exactly as we saw it presented—no attempt was made to correct the misreporting, despite the belief that it was wrong. The claim that Iraq tried to buy 500 tonnes of yellowcake from Niger was still included in the dossier, despite the fact that it was known that a visit made to Niger by a former US ambassador six months before had confirmed that the claim was completely bogus.
	The Prime Minister claimed to the House in February last year—perhaps my hon. Friends will listen to this point, as I think that it is quite important, and it has received virtually no attention—that the defection of Hussein Kamal, Saddam's son in law, in 1995 had revealed
	"the offensive biological weapons and the full extent of the nuclear programme".—[Official Report, 25 February 2003; Vol. 400, c. 123.]
	But as we now know from a Newsweek exclusive a few weeks later, what Hussein Kamal actually said in his debriefing was exactly the opposite:
	"all weapons—biological, chemical, missile, nuclear—were destroyed."
	As Butler has pointed out so poignantly, all the ifs and buts, qualifications and caveats in the raw intelligence data were dropped from the dossier, while the positive allegations were distinctly over-hyped. Sources were treated as reliable when they clearly were not, and they were not checked with the expertise of intelligence staff.
	Anyone who reads appendix B of the Butler report, which I think is excellently set out, can see set out step by step how the process of massaging and accretion steadily accumulated, until we were finally told in the September dossier that Saddam's weapons of mass destruction programme was "active, detailed and growing", and that the intelligence on which that judgment was based was "extensive, detailed and authoritative", when in fact, Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction at all.
	Nobody—and I think that this is true—is doubting the good faith of the Prime Minister or that he sincerely believed in the policies that he was pursuing. He believed in them passionately, and I think that everyone recognises that, but that is not the issue. The issue is his judgment and his over-eagerness to take us into a war on grounds that far exceeded the available evidence. The issue now is accountability, and I think that that is now the issue for this House to exorcise. One cannot take this country into a war under false pretences and then proclaim, as Butler does, that nobody can be held responsible.
	Over the Gilligan affair, which is utterly trivial by comparison, the Government made it clear that they expected heads to roll—and they did. On this matter, there are two central issues on which I think that those responsible must be held to account. One is the presentation of the evidence that persuaded the House to agree to war. Being sinuous with the truth may not be lying, but it is certainly not open or honest. Presenting a seriously misleading account of the facts may not be lying, but it is not truthful or straightforward either. The second central issue is the framework of governance that allowed the decision to be taken. Those are the key issues, and a debate on a motion for the Adjournment is not an adequate format—

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The right hon. Gentleman's time is up.

Crispin Blunt: It is a pleasure to follow an extremely important and powerful speech by the right hon. Member for Oldham, West and Royton (Mr. Meacher). I agree with him in a number of respects, including on the importance of the meeting in Crawford, Texas, where I think that the course taken by the United Kingdom was set. I also agree with what he said about accountability, as well as about the Prime Minister's sincerity.
	I do not think that there was any doubt about the Prime Minister's sincerity when he made the case for war. In the past seven years, this House and the country generally have been treated to one or two rather stomach-churning thespian performances from the Prime Minister, but anyone who saw his performance on 18 March last year will have known that it was of an entirely different quality. On Iraq, he has usually spoken with simple conviction.
	My concern is the same as that of the right hon. Member for Oldham, West and Royton—that it is the Prime Minister's judgment and the strategy that has flowed from the depth of his conviction that have proved flawed. As he was so convinced in the virtues of his actions and the United States was so focused on regime change, the necessary focus on post-Saddam Iraq was missing. A number of speakers have referred to the fact that Iraq was on the Bush Government's agenda before 9/11, as we have heard in comments attributed to Condoleezza Rice in her interview with The New Yorker. It was clear to informed observers that, in early 2002, the United States was set on this strategy, which was obviously made explicit to the Prime Minister at that vital meeting in Crawford, Texas. The Defence Committee heard evidence that British officers attached to Centcom were then privy to the planning for the operation in Iraq in early summer 2002. For the United States, Iraq was unfinished business from 1991. For the Prime Minister, it was about weapons of mass destruction—I think that that was his sincere belief—combined with the capacity of the suicide attackers demonstrated on 9/11.
	The results of the coalition strategy have been disastrous in many respects. The collapse of the Prime Minister's credibility means that his ability to persuade Parliament and the country about the need for future war, should it arise, has been fatally undermined. Several Labour Members have called on the Prime Minister to consider his position, but if there is a need for the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to come to the House of Commons to make a similar case to the one that he made—this was the fifth time that the country had gone to pre-emptive war under the right hon. Gentleman's leadership—he will have a serious problem persuading the House and the country. The leader of the United Kingdom should not carry such a handicap.
	A further element of the problem is the demolition of the liberal west's moral authority, which is most graphically seen in the pictures that came out of Abu Ghraib prison. A further cause for Osama bin Laden and his zealots to exploit has been created through the collapse of a country that was diametrically opposed to them. Of course, there is a real risk of civil war in Iraq if a satisfactory federal settlement cannot be found, so we might find that statements about how fewer people are now dying in Iraq than was the case under Saddam Hussein could be completely reversed, with appalling consequences, if it falls into civil war during the months and years to come.
	If I knew on 18 March 2003 what I know now, I would not have voted for the motion, but that is not because I would have thought that the resolution was unjustified. I agreed with the analysis of my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), who made his case extremely well. However, the problem is the way in which the policy has been acted out in practice and how the coalition has conducted operations because that has meant that the possible benefits of the operation have been overtaken by the costs.
	The mistakes that were made have been rehearsed many times. The Pentagon was in charge, yet was not equipped for the more challenging role of rebuilding a state. Insufficient priority was given to the planning of post-conflict operations. Under the Rumsfeld doctrine, a military operation was conducted on the cheap with a lightening strike to take Baghdad—that was a brilliant operation—but insufficient forces were left on the ground to deal with the collapse of the government of Iraq. The army and other security forces were disbanded and, of course, Iraq was used as an experiment for transformative politics, as envisaged by Paul Wolfowitz.
	The core strategic mistake was made because we should have been absolutely clear about the outcome at the outset: to remove the regime and produce a replacement Iraqi Government. The very moment at which we had leverage over people such as Ayatollah Sistani, representatives of the Shi'a community—both those in Iraq and in exile—and the Kurdish leaders, all of whom wanted Saddam Hussein to go and were desperate for the coalition powers to intervene, was before we intervened. We should have ensured that the post-war settlement of Iraq was clear because we now have the problem that we have to rely on the wisdom and leadership of Ayatollah Sistani more than anyone else. We need him to reach an agreement with the Kurdish leaders, in particular, that will meet their desire for a satisfactory element of self-government for that part of Iraq, in addition to the desire of the majority of the Iraqi population for proper influence on the whole country's affairs.
	We are now engaged in the difficult process of moving towards democracy in Iraq. Iraqi experts agree that the moderate middle in Iraq is weak and that political parties with appeal to the intelligentsia have neither organisation nor a significant democratic base. Given the way in which the United Nations elections are being set up, it is likely that individuals will be encouraged to run for elections on the basis of not party support, but personality. There is a danger that that process will by default lead to the mass support of demagogues who will attack the whole parliamentary and governmental system and try to sweep away such parties, as has happened all too often in modern Iraqi history.
	Our real problem as a coalition is that we will not know what to do if Iraq begins to descend into civil war. If the security situation deteriorates and the interim Government cannot maintain the minimum level of legitimacy and control, what are British and American forces supposed to do? I do not know, and I am not sure that the Government do either.

Peter Kilfoyle: Two contemporaneous debates are being conducted as we speak. One is going on in the rather esoteric environment of the House of Commons, but to people inside the House, let alone those outside, it is riddled with pedantry and hyperbole and it often seems futile. A more important debate is going on outside the House in the minds and hearts of the British people and people throughout the world about the extent to which a decision taken long ago was right. I often wonder what people make of these debates—they are bad enough for the British public, so God knows what the international public think.
	During today's debate, we heard a lucid and cogent speech from the leader of the Liberal Democrats, who has the added merit of maintaining a consistent position over time. The Leader of the Opposition displayed tautological contortions as he tried increasingly to justify the rather bizarre ambivalence of his position on the war. The Prime Minister's contribution contained elements of defensive sophistry, but it did not really add to the total knowledge of people outside the House, although the same problems keep reoccurring and members of the Government repeatedly maintain things that they know not to be true.
	For example, two outstanding arguments were made in the run-up to the war, and they have been rehearsed consistently since. The first argument was about the legality of the war, although I am prepared to accept that a case for a legal war could be made under UN Security Council resolution 1441—I know that hon. Members could have a big argument about that.
	Secondly, a political case was made and, to defer to the Foreign Secretary, I shall not claim that it was said that there was an "imminent" threat, but that a clear and present threat emanated from Saddam Hussein. The political argument won over many people in the political class and many outside the House. It was repeated ad nauseam in the newspapers—of course, it was promoted on behalf of the Government because that is what Governments do. Nevertheless, it has been shown that the argument was wholly untrue. There was no threat and there were no weapons of mass destruction. I am not someone such as Lord Butler who cautiously says, "Don't close down the possibility", because we know a threat when a threat exists and know a weapon of mass destruction when it exists. Curiously, when Lord Butler wrote about the background to the weapons of mass destruction, he did not mention where they actually came from. He made a cursory mention of what Iraq had before 1990, but he did not refer to the countries, including the United Kingdom and the United States, that provided the very weapons of mass destruction that would later become politically problematic.
	People outside the House realise where we are today. They know that there was no threat, nor any weapons of mass destruction. It would be easy for those of us who voted against the war to say, "We told you so. We were right"—we were right, actually. However, the truth of the matter is that on 18 March 2003, we voted for the simple premise that the case for war was not proven. It is wrong and misleading to suggest that the people who voted for that were somehow condoning Saddam or, as the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) implied, that we were all pacifists, or that we took the view that would not resort to military action when that was appropriate. However, we found the case unconvincing on that occasion. We were able to argue that without the merits of Butler and Hutton because many of us thought that it was evident at the time that the Government's case did not stack up. Nothing has happened to change our view since then, although I hear people who took a different view trying to reconcile their consciences with what they now know. If they did vote for war on the basis of weapons of mass destruction, they did so because of a fallacious argument that should never have been made, but I can say that with hindsight.
	People out there will still have a view on whether we should pursue this argument. I have a view on that. My right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East (Donald Anderson) again implied that we should draw a line under this and hope that the whole thing goes away. It may be an embarrassment to him and his Committee, the Government and the official Opposition, but the fact remains that many thousands of people have lost their lives, as we heard today, in an illegal and immoral war.

Richard Younger-Ross: The hon. Gentleman has spoken eloquently on this subject a number of times and it is a pleasure to hear him speak again. Will he expand on where he believes the evidence did not stack up? People say that the intelligence evidence is now disproved, but we never believed it because when the weapons inspectors went to places identified by the intelligence officers as having weapons, there were none. That undermined the argument that there was any real evidence in the first place.

Peter Kilfoyle: I could wax eloquent all night on those points, but let me put it simply. On the night of the great debate in the Chamber, I and others made the point that inspectors were in Iraq dismantling the weapons of war that had been found. Hon. Members may recall the Prime Minister referring to appeasement, as though those who were opposed to war were appeasers, akin to those in 1938—in fact, I think he actually referred to it in that way. I said that we did not have League of Nations inspectors dismantling the Panzers, but UN inspectors dismantling the weapons of mass destruction.
	Anyone who knows anything about such things would wonder, as I did at the time, why we had spent so many years missing all the weapons of mass destruction when we had alleged precision-targeted bombing of every military installation in Iraq. Where were they? What about satellite reconnaissance and all the rest of it, which is supposed to tell us the location of a truck or, indeed, the man standing beside the truck? The case clearly needed more evidence than was available. We did not get that evidence and today certain views have been vindicated.

John Bercow: The hon. Gentleman says that the war was immoral. Is he saying that continual breach of United Nations resolutions, massive human rights violations against the people of Iraq and the desire to disable the regime responsible for the latter, could never constitute justification for intervention? If he is not saying that, in what circumstances would he countenance intervention?

Peter Kilfoyle: I am not saying that at all. We are discussing an entirely separate set of circumstances. Nor do I agree, by the way, with some of my Back-Bench colleagues who would transpose the conditions raised by the hon. Gentleman into another set of geopolitical circumstances.
	I am sure that I speak for most of those who were against the war when I say that we did not in any way condone either Saddam personally or the regime that he headed. However, those were not the explicit reasons for going to war. Regime change was never on offer, no matter how repulsive the regime might have been. To return to my theme about the British public, what was certainly on offer was the case that there was a clear and present danger—a threat—emanating from Saddam. That was demonstrably not the case then and is demonstrably not the case now.
	Deciding to go to war will be a very difficult sin—to speak in my own terms—for us to eradicate as a party. We will be held to account as a party for this war whether we voted against it or for it. The morality of the case was put eloquently by the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer). My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Singh) was more eloquent than I could ever hope to be about the damage that the war has done to my party. More importantly, however, is the damage that has been done to our position in Europe and the United Nations and to our relationships with the Muslim world. I hope that that damage is not irreparable, but it is very great indeed.

Patsy Calton: In following the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle), I can only say how much I agree with everything he said.
	The Butler report gives a useful overview of the use and role of intelligence, and I suspect that it is as much for the good of the House of Commons as it is for the Government and perhaps the Cabinet. In his overview of the use and role of intelligence, Butler talks about the limitations of intelligence and the various types of intelligence—human, imaging and signals—and says how important corroborative evidence is when human intelligence is involved. It is not enough to have a single source or a single source at third hand who cannot be traced afterwards, which seems to be the case with the Iraq intelligence. He stresses the importance of assessment, a stage that was apparently missed out in the case of the 45-minute claim, which came at a late stage.
	Butler also makes the point that it is necessary to challenge at every level. The intelligence services must be challenged. The Joint Intelligence Committee must continue to challenge information. On a political level, both the Prime Minister and the Cabinet must be challenged. It is important that we take all four reports into account. When I looked at the work of the Intelligence and Security Committee, as I did soon after its report came out, I was astonished to find at paragraph 73 of page 24 that of the seven Departments that acknowledged they had received a copy of the first draft of the September dossier, only one, to its credit, made any comment. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister was, apparently, not sent a draft. The private offices of some Secretaries of State decided that their masters did not need to see it. However, the Foreign Secretary and the Minister for Trade and Investment at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office both commented on it.
	Some of those Secretaries of States, some of whom have since left the Government, have commented on how Cabinet work lacks overall Cabinet responsibility because one person makes the decisions, but they did not even look at the draft. If they made it clear to their outer office that they did not want to be troubled with the information, how on earth can they complain afterwards that they were not involved?
	I have been fascinated over the past couple of years to watch the Prime Minister. I have been trying to understand why he climbed out further and further on a limb. He clearly genuinely believed what he told us. I could not believe that someone would go so far out on a limb on intelligence that at best had lots of ifs and buts about it. Careful reading of the information issued and the statements made revealed that deniability was written into much of the phrasing. When deniability is put into almost every line, one begins to wonder why that deniability exists.
	Butler talks about the backdrop and gives four case studies, including North Korea and Iran. He mentions the creeping tide of terrorism and the concern that the Prime Minister, the Cabinet and the JIC clearly had. In paragraph 285, the Prime Minister is reported as telling the Butler committee that
	"the place to start was Iraq"
	out of all the various threats across the world
	"because you have the history of the United Nations Resolutions and you have the . . . fact that we'd taken action in respect of WMD in the aftermath of the Gulf War, then again in 1998".
	The Prime Minister saw Iraq within a context. He did not see it as an isolated case, according to what he told Lord Butler. Yet he was telling the House of Commons something different—
	It being Seven o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order. No. 15 (Exempted Business),
	That, at this day's sitting, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House in the name of the Prime Minister may continue, though opposed, until eight o'clock and that the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Bill, Energy Bill [Lords] and any Lords Messages and Amendments that may be received may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. Jim Murphy.]
	Question agreed to.

Iraq

Question again proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Jim Murphy.]

Patsy Calton: The Prime Minister lays great stress on the strengthening of the JIC assessments in 2002. Was he aware, when he made his decision, of the risks of "group think" to which Lord Butler draws attention in paragraph 57 of his report? In paragraph 58, Butler says:
	"The assessment process must be informed by an understanding of policy-makers' requirements for information, but must avoid being so captured by policy objectives that it reports the world as policy makers would wish it to be rather than as it is."
	The Government have set up machinery whereby everyone from teachers to doctors, policemen and civil servants know that they must see the world as the Government see it or they are out. If they step out of line they pay the price, so naturally the JIC produced the reports that the Government wanted. Commenting on the first draft of the dossier to the Intelligence and Security Committee, the Defence Secretary said that it was "insufficiently dramatic", as if that were its most important feature. It is almost impossible to believe that that comment would not have seeped out.
	Today, the Prime Minister quoted selectively from Butler's conclusions, and omitted the conclusion that Iraq did not
	"have significant—if any—stocks of chemical or biological weapons in a state fit for deployment, or developed plans for using them."
	The Prime Minister made it clear that he believed that Iraq continued to produce biological weapons and their means of delivery.
	As I am running out of time, I shall conclude. As a citizen of this country and a Member of Parliament, I expect people with access to material used in the build-up to war to take individual and collective responsibility for it. It is simply not good enough to be left in a position where we do not know whether anybody has asked any questions. There is a sense of public outrage about the war. Governments cannot slide into war using dodgy, unchecked information—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Lady has had her eight minutes.

Tony Wright: There has been a certain amount of soul searching today, and I am afraid that I am about to indulge in a little more. Those of us who could not support the Government on military action had a duty to test their case not at its weakest but at its strongest. We had to set the bar as high as possible. Had we set it as low as possible, confining ourselves to details of intelligence, we can easily see why we would have run into trouble. I always wanted to make sure, however, that I tested the Government's case at its strongest. I listened carefully to the Prime Minister many times, as he spoke about the new era and
	"the security threat of the 21st century".
	The connection between rogue states, proliferation and terrorism meant that one had to draw a line in the sand and take a stand. I took that case seriously and was particularly anxious not to be associated with people who were naturally deemed to be in a different camp. I did not want to be thought anti-American, and certainly did not want to be thought an appeaser who wanted to sustain a vile dictator. The Government's case therefore had to be tested at its strongest.
	I read the Butler report to help me to understand the policy considerations that informed the decisions that we were asked to make. Members have found that help in different parts of "What the Butler Saw", and I found it in paragraph 429, which says that in spring 2002 the Government considered two options for future action. One was a toughening of containment and the other was a move towards military action. The report says that regime change would not be lawful, and noted the difficulty in achieving UN acceptance of military action. It says that the UN
	"would need to be convinced that Iraq was in breach of its obligations; that such proof would need to be incontrovertible and of large-scale activity; but that the intelligence then available was insufficiently robust to meet that criterion."
	It goes on to say that that formed the background to the Prime Minister's meeting with President Bush at Crawford on 6 and 7 April 2002.
	I fear that, at that point, a strategic judgment or decision was made, making it necessary to mobilise intelligence to sustain it. As the intelligence became thinner—we know from Butler that that is the case—the advocacy for military action became stronger. Eventually, that contradiction impelled the House of Commons to action, forcing it to take a view. We can see that more clearly now than we did at the time. The Prime Minister did his very best to keep the international community together, and would have liked to resolve the situation without military action. However, President Bush and his Administration could not walk away from Iraq without taking military action. The Prime Minister could have done so—it would have been a kind of victory for him—but for President Bush, it would have been a catastrophic, humiliating defeat, given everything that he had said about the United Nations and international policy on Iraq.
	When former President Clinton, who was in the country last week, spoke about those matters, he paid great tribute to the Prime Minister and his efforts to keep the international community together, but he also said that in retrospect it was clear that we should have allowed the inspectors to continue their job so that we could establish beyond peradventure whether Iraq had been successfully disarmed or not. If we had established that the policy had worked, I believe that the Government would not have come back to the House for a decision. There was not a great distance between people holding different positions.
	Those of us who took a different view of military action were persuaded that it, or the threat of military action, was required to sustain the United Nations' position, but we believed that that position was working. It now seems that that was the case, and we could have kept the international community intact and disarmed Saddam. Indeed, we could have flooded Iraq with human rights inspectors, as that was rightly a consideration. That is my understanding of the policy considerations.

Calum MacDonald: That was a key point of dispute between us at the time of the decision to go to war. What makes my hon. Friend think that another two months of inspections would have clarified whether Iraq had disarmed or not, when six years of inspections had not clarified that, one way or the other?

Tony Wright: The answer is that we had embarked upon a process that had that at its centre. What we did not do was to test whether it had worked or not. We now know that it had worked. That is the fundamental conclusion.
	I have one more point to make, which came out of my reading of Butler. It is important for the House to reflect on it. As I read the report and many of the things that Butler said, I thought it was a vindication of what we sometimes call the awkward squad. A theme of Butler is that we did not have enough people asking the right questions as the process went along.

Gordon Prentice: The Cabinet!

Tony Wright: I will do the list, if my hon. Friend does not mind.
	We did not have the right people in Cabinet asking the right questions as the process went along. We did not have the right people among the official Opposition asking the right questions as it went along. We did not have the right people in the JIC asking the right questions as it went along. One of the few heroes in the story, by the way, is Dr. Brian Jones, who was a member of the awkward squad and did ask some of the questions.
	What Butler says in his recommendations—of course, mandarins do not talk about awkward squads, but I translate the high mandarin into our kind of language—is that not only do we need the awkward squad in those places, but we need to give the awkward squad institutional and constitutional protection to ensure that those considerations are raised at each point in the process. That is embedded in a number of Lord Butler's specific recommendations.
	I conclude by saying that we shall never know the answer to some of—

Alice Mahon: May I tell my hon. Friend that that was an excellent speech? He spelled out everything I would have wanted to say, had I been called. Will he reflect on this: had we known, about 20,000 Iraqis might still be living, we might not be poised on the verge of a civil war, and the entire huge tragedy might not have unfolded in front of us? I take my hon. Friend's point about flooding Iraq with human rights monitors. We had Saddam on his knees and weakened and we could have done that.

Tony Wright: Yes, I take my hon. Friend's point.
	Only the historians will tell us what really happened. It is only they who will get to see the papers. It is only they who will get the real evidence that an inquiry might see, which can tease out the policy considerations, what happened when and who said what to whom. Only they will tell us the origins of the military action and what its real consequences were. All we can do is say that we probably did make a serious mistake in what we did; but having done it, we have an obligation to try to make Iraq a rather better place now than it was before.

John Baron: If the Prime Minister's only mistake in this affair is that we went to war even though it is now clear that there are no weapons of mass destruction, it would have been right to question only his wisdom. However, because it is also now clear from the Butler report that there was a very wide margin indeed between the extent to which the intelligence services qualified their remarks when reporting to the Prime Minister and what the Prime Minister told Parliament and the country, it is also right to question his integrity and credibility.
	The issue at the time was not whether regime change was desirable; it was whether Iraq's weapons of mass destruction presented a danger. It is now clear to any objective observer that the Prime Minister did not accurately relay the intelligence at his disposal. As a result, the country was duped into a war under false pretences. For it is clear that the Butler report has confirmed that the JIC's intelligence reports during 2002 were full of qualifications and reservations, yet the Prime Minister clearly stated that there was no doubt that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction justified war. But we know that that was not the case.
	In justifying the case for war, the Prime Minister excluded those reservations and, with the zeal of a barrister determined to win his case in court, claimed that the facts had been established beyond doubt. Even Lord Butler, operating within the limited remit of his brief, believes that the omission of the intelligence qualifications was "significant".

Richard Younger-Ross: Does the hon. Gentleman believe, however, that perhaps the Prime Minister thought he ought to go down that road because he was being pushed to do so by the official Opposition, who kept accusing the Government and others of being anti-American in any criticism of what George Bush said on the middle east and on Iraq in particular?

John Baron: No, I disagree with that. I think that our Prime Minister, unfortunately, was being pushed by the Americans. That is the centre of the issue. Let us consider the 45-minute claim. That is clear evidence that we as a country were misled by the Prime Minister.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That is the second time, I think, that the hon. Gentleman has used that word. He should be very careful with the words he uses. We have strict conventions in the House.

John Baron: We all remember that the claim that Saddam Hussein could deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes was integral, if not central, to the Prime Minister's case for war. Like other hon. Members, I find it incredible that the Prime Minister did not ask the basic question whether the chemical and biological weapons that he thought Iraq possessed could be fired at targets outside Iraq or just used on the battlefield.
	No, the fact of the matter was that the decision to go to war had been made, regardless of the intelligence. The lesson from that must be, as other hon. Members have highlighted during the debate, that in future there must be much closer questioning of the evidence at hand. Partly because the House was not privy to the intelligence reports, which made its task extremely difficult, the assumption was that the Prime Minister knew more than we did, but that was not the case. There was no shortage of evidence with which to contradict the Prime Minister.
	For example, we know that Iraq used to possess weapons of mass destruction. We know that because America and the west supplied Saddam Hussein with those weapons. However, the Iraq of 2003 was a shadow of its 1991 standing. It had been the most watched-over country in the world, yet no concrete evidence could be produced that Iraq possessed WMD. All that could be produced was the dodgy dossier, which was essentially a reworked thesis that was more than 10 years old.
	Meanwhile, not enough credence was given to the evidence on the ground. Mr. Scott Ritter, one of the most aggressive UN chief weapons inspectors during the 1990s, repeatedly said that Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction. Hans Blix and the other UN inspectors in the period leading up to the war wanted a little more time to complete their task because they, too, could not find WMD.

Robert Wareing: I have been listening intently to what the hon. Gentleman has been saying and agreeing with almost all of it, but did he vote against the war when many of us were saying those things?

John Baron: I can put the hon. Gentleman's mind at rest. I did vote against the war and I resigned from the Front Bench in order to do so.
	There was no shortage of evidence from the US Government to contradict the Prime Minister. That has not been touched on much during the debate. For example, Secretary of State Colin Powell said at a press conference in Cairo in February 2001:
	"And frankly, economic sanctions have worked. Saddam Hussein has not developed any significant capability with respect to WMD. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours."
	On 15 May Powell went further and said that Saddam Hussein had not been able to
	"build his military back up or to develop WMD for the last 10 years".
	As late as July 2001, Condoleezza Rice also publicly described Iraq as weak and militarily defenceless. Yet soon, the Prime Minister was to tell us all just how dangerous Iraq was. The fact is that the situation on the ground had not changed since 2001; only the political priorities of the US Government, who had decided to invade Iraq regardless of the issue of WMD, had changed.
	The collective failure identified by the Butler report also involved the intelligence services, for despite the Prime Minister's exaggeration of the threat, the JIC approved the wording of the dossier. In my view, the JIC was at least subconsciously influenced by its knowledge of the Prime Minister's desire to state the case for war—a fact that was at least acknowledged by the Butler report when it recommended that future JIC chairmen should be experienced in dealing with senior Ministers and demonstrably beyond influence. The intelligence services should be the eyes and ears of the Prime Minister, not his mouthpiece. It is tempting to conclude from this whole episode that policy indeed led intelligence rather than intelligence leading policy. That is another lesson that needs to be taken away from this affair.
	We have since heard the Prime Minister justify the war by saying that although WMD might not be found, the world is a much better place without Saddam Hussein. To me, that is very dangerous talk. Civilised nations do not go goose-stepping around the world invading countries because they think that they may be a threat, then, when they find that they are not, justifying it by claiming that the world is a better place. That is the law of the jungle. It is illegal, because article 2 of the United Nations emphasises that member states cannot engage in regime change.
	The Government may take refuge behind resolution 1441, as they have in the past and probably will again this evening. However, the countries that signed up to that resolution did so believing that it could justify war only if there were no alternatives. Indeed, the US ambassador to the United Nations at the time was at pains to emphasise that there were no hidden trigger points for war in the resolution. That is one reason why the US and the UK could not muster even a moral majority when it came to the second resolution. In truth, all other approaches had not been exhausted. The threat of force, deterrence and containment of Saddam Hussein were working, as was recognised by the US itself as late as 2001, and as is confirmed by post-war evidence. The same policy had worked during the cold war and when dealing with rogue states such as Libya.
	Meanwhile, UN weapons inspectors wanted more time but were denied it, despite some progress being made. There was nothing to be lost by giving them a little more time to complete their task—indeed, there was much to be gained—but instead we were rushing to meet an American military timetable that had only one outcome, namely war. I should add that I am not anti-American—quite the reverse—but I believe that good friends need to point out when bad mistakes are being made.
	The simple fact is that war was not justified. War must always be the measure of last resort when all other approaches have been exhausted and are futile. Indeed, war can be justified only when there is no other possibility. If we lose sight of that, we lose the moral high ground that is often a source of strength in challenging times. We will be signing up to the law of the jungle, and the world will be a worse place because of it. We all agree that Saddam Hussein's was a revolting regime, but that was not in itself sufficient justification to go to war.
	War is the ultimate responsibility and act of politicians, yet in many respects it also illustrates their ultimate failure. The crime here is that the Prime Minister turned qualified judgments into unqualified certainties. As a result, this country sleepwalked into war and the world took a step backwards as a consequence. That mistake must not be made again. Lord Butler is right to say that there was collective failure, but the Prime Minister's responsibility for that failure is paramount. His credibility, as well as that of the country, will continue to suffer as a result.

Mike Gapes: This will be an eight-minute speech delivered in one and a half minutes. I refer hon. Members to my speech on 4 June last year, which sets out some of the arguments that I am about to make.
	The situation that we are in today is fundamental to the future of the Iraqi people. Hon. Members who have argued as though this debate is entirely internal should listen to what the Iraqi people are saying. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary will no doubt respond to the points that they raised. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) made clear, the Iraqi people are glad that they were liberated from Saddam Hussein. When I went to Iraq with the Select Committee on Defence, we flew into Basra in a Puma. Tragically, I fear that some of the people I met there may have been involved in this week's horrific crash.
	Our people in Iraq are doing a fantastically important job in rebuilding the infrastructure, supplying clean water, helping with electricity supplies, training the new army and the police, and dealing with many other necessities. We have to finish that job. Let us support them, then help to build a democratic Iraq and self-determination for an Iraqi people who are free from Ba'athist fascism.

Michael Ancram: I congratulate the hon. Member for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes) on probably the shortest speech that he will make in the House for a long time.
	This has been a most interesting debate, which has partly been about the situation in Iraq but also, crucially, about the Butler report and the information that it disclosed, for which the Government in general and the Prime Minister in particular must answer and be held to account. We have heard many fine speeches. I will not have time to deal with them all, but I should like to mention a few.
	I shall start, if I may, with the typically humorous but percipient contribution by my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), who rightly described the whole saga as a monumental PR failure and asked whether, in the end, the intelligence mattered to the Government. I hope that the Foreign Secretary will answer that question.
	As I expected, several different views have been expressed, as in the debate on 18 March. Once again, I listened to them with great respect. We have conducted our debates accepting that we have differences of opinion, and we have dealt with those differences in an exemplary way.
	I listened to my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer), whose position is not new. He has always made a powerful moral argument, and did so again today. I listened to my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend, East (Sir Teddy Taylor)—he, too, has always held to his position. I listened to the Father of the House, who has been consistent in the position that he has taken, as has the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle).
	The hon. Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Singh) made some important observations about the impact that this has had on Muslim opinion, not only in this country but abroad. It is important that we consider his comments very carefully and take action to address the situation that he identified.
	My right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley) asked—it has been asked before—whether there was a deal between the President of the United States and the Prime Minister to back a war against Iraq and if that was why the intelligence ultimately matched the policy instead of the policy being made on the basis of the intelligence. The right hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) made the same point.
	I repeat those points because they go to the heart of the confidence that we have in the way that the system has operated. I hope that the Foreign Secretary will give us unequivocal answers.
	I turn to the situation in Iraq. I welcome the handover of power to the Interim Government. Given yet another spate of car bombings, they are having to operate in a very grim situation. Their task is not easy, and my party and I wish them well.
	Although we inevitably view the security situation with concern, I want to join the Prime Minister and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) in once again paying tribute to the magnificent work that is being carried out by our armed forces. Their dedication and professionalism remains a matter of great pride.
	It is worth recalling why they are serving their country in this way. They went out there to deal with a United Nations-recognised threat to international peace and security. As a result of coalition action, Saddam Hussein and the international threat that he posed are gone. That is why we supported the war and were right to do so. I still believe that, as I said in the debate on 18 March last year, had we not gone to war then, we would have had to do so in future when it might have been much more dangerous and difficult. After the war, our servicemen and women remained there to help to give Iraq the chance of democracy, freedom and prosperity. That could make it a force for stability and good within the region as a whole. Completion of that objective may still be some way off, but we do Iraq no favours by talking only about the bad side and never about the good.
	The first good news is that Saddam Hussein has gone. As the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) reminded us, the people of Iraq are delighted by that. I have always taken the view that regime change was not a reason to go to war. I have always doubted the legality of regime change, but I believe that we can all rejoice in the fact that the people of Iraq are now free from that reign of terror.
	Other things are improving on the ground in Iraq. The health budget is now US$948 million, compared with US$16 million under Saddam Hussein in 2002. In education, 2,500 schools have been rehabilitated and 32,000 teachers and education workers have been trained. In terms of the utilities, which were a matter of such concern when I was in Iraq last autumn, there is still much work to be done. However, water quality has been improved for 1.6 million people, and electricity generation is at last improving. Progress towards our post-war objective is therefore real and welcome, but there is still a long way to go.
	Too much of the current instability is caused by unemployment. There is not enough investment, there are not enough jobs and, in too many cases, having no wages leads people to believe that they have little or nothing to lose through unrest. The Government must accept a good degree of blame for this situation. Before the war, I pressed them for assurances that a comprehensive plan for the reconstruction and rehabilitation of Iraq was ready to be put in hand. I was assured that there was such a plan. I also asked for assurances that the Government had made adequate provision for the swift delivery of humanitarian aid and, again, I was assured that they had. It was only after the successful military action that we discovered, as my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt) reminded us, that those assurances were not worth the breath that they were given with, because there were no comprehensive post-war plans in place.
	Only now are many of the things that should have been happening then beginning to happen. I believe that, in time, Iraq will come good. Unlike the leader of the Liberal Democrats, I think that we have a duty to stay there and to help the Iraqi people until it does. It would be a sign of good faith to those people if the Government at least acknowledged their failure to plan and acknowledged the time that has been lost. Perhaps that is too much to expect, however, from a Government and a Prime Minister who have never acknowledged their failures in the run-up to the war and in its aftermath.
	The Prime Minister has been in denial again today. This is not some party political game. This is about a decision to go to war; it is about grave issues. These are matters in which confidence in the Prime Minister, and in what he tells Parliament and the country, is central. Yet, once again, he brushes aside the issues of trust and confidence—issues that even Alastair Campbell, in his notorious diaries, described as "huge stuff". Once again, the Prime Minister seems to assume that, because we supported—and continue to support—the war, he should somehow be beyond our criticism. Let me tell him: he is not.
	The fact that the war was justified does not mean that the manipulation or enhancement of intelligence is beyond reproach; it is not. Even if I did not need the Prime Minister's rhetoric to persuade me of the justification for war, I still have the right to believe that his interpretation of the intelligence was accurate. At moments of national or international crisis, the Prime Minister is the conduit to the public and to Parliament on matters of intelligence. Great care must be taken to ensure that what the public are given is the unvarnished truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The Butler report clearly demonstrates that, in relation to WMD, those standards were not met. As my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mr. Baron) pointed out, the emphatic picture of their current and threatening existence that the Prime Minister painted at the time quite simply ignored the caveats, warnings and qualifications on the quality of the intelligence on which his assertions were based.
	We have asked the Prime Minister why he failed to disclose those crucial caveats and why he did not temper his certainty as a result of them. We have received no answer. Let me remind him again of the speech that he made on 24 September 2002, when he said that the intelligence
	"concludes that Iraq has"—
	not "had", but "has"—
	"chemical and biological weapons, that Saddam has continued to produce them".—[Official Report, 24 September 2002; Vol. 390, c. 3.]
	When I asked the Foreign Secretary in the debate on the Intelligence and Security Committee on 8 July whether, in the light of that statement by the Prime Minister, the intelligence had shown that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction at that stage, the Foreign Secretary replied that
	"the analysis of that question is the focus of the Butler inquiry, which will be subject to full parliamentary consideration."—[Official Report, 8 July 2003; Vol. 423, c. 1099.]
	Yet another clear and informative answer from the Foreign Secretary. This debate is the only parliamentary consideration that has been made available and, so far, we have not had an answer. The Foreign Secretary owes the House one.
	The JIC report talks about capability. It does not talk about the existence of the weapons themselves. That is a crucial difference. We know from Butler that the intelligence was flawed; in his own words, it was "sporadic", "patchy" and "limited". We now know that it could not have supported the statements of the Prime Minister that the current existence of the WMD was "beyond doubt". The Prime Minister is a lawyer, and he knows that the words "beyond doubt" have a particular significance. He used them then, he has used them again today, and he used them in an interview that he gave to Sky more than a year ago. We now know that the judgments in the dossier of 24 September 2002 were not "beyond doubt". Butler said that they
	"went to . . . the outer limits of the intelligence available."
	We already knew that the second "dodgy" dossier of 3 February 2003, which the Prime Minister told the House was "further intelligence", simply could not justify that description. There may be explanations for these discrepancies. If so, we have not been given them. As a result, we are left with the conclusion that there was a conscious attempt to enhance the intelligence in order to minimise dissent in the House and the country.
	For democracies, war must always be a serious option. It should never be a matter for spin, but tonight we are left with the conclusion that in this case it was. It has been argued that the decision to go to war was taken with our support, that the war is over and that none of this really matters any more. I totally disagree. What is at issue is not only the judgment of the Prime Minister but his credibility, and that is crucial. This is a matter of trust, and once that trust is breached, it is gone. The next time the Prime Minister purports to advise the House and the country on matters arising from intelligence, on what basis can we be confident that the intelligence has not once again been enhanced? As a number of my colleagues have already pointed out, that is a situation that this country cannot afford.
	That is why the questions posed to the Prime Minister today have been of such importance. So what answers have we had? What has happened to the WMD? We did not hear anything about that today. I remind the Prime Minister that, in his interview for Sky on 31 May last year, he said:
	"I certainly do know some of the stuff that has been already accumulated . . . What we are going to do is assemble that evidence"—
	again, he knows the importance of the word "evidence"—
	"and present it properly to people . . . I have no doubt whatever that the evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction will be there."
	Well, a year and a half later, where is that evidence of which he was so certain? Why did he ignore the caveats? He has admitted today that they existed; why did he not qualify his language as a result of them? Butler criticised the way in which the Downing street team worked. The Prime Minister told us that he accepted the findings of Butler, yet we have heard nothing today about changes being made in that regard.
	Of course, we have still to hear from the Foreign Secretary, who may yet provide us with the answers to some of these questions. Indeed, one strange feature of the run-up to the war was the difference of tone struck by the Foreign Secretary throughout, in relation to weapons of mass destruction, compared with the categorical assertions of the Prime Minister. The Foreign Secretary was always careful to found the case for war on the United Nations resolutions and Hans Blix's reports, rather than on direct assertions of the existence of weapons of mass destruction. Perhaps he took the caveats more seriously. Perhaps he could explain to the House what he knew at that time.
	I would like the Foreign Secretary to explain something else as well. We have heard today about the intelligence that was withdrawn, which we read about in the Butler report. The Foreign Secretary knew about that intelligence as long ago as last September. Is it not the case that the head of MI6 informed him of the withdrawal of that intelligence on 8 September 2003? If so, will the Foreign Secretary explain to the House why the Prime Minister was not told about it? If it was important enough for the Foreign Secretary to know about, I would have expected him to tell the Prime Minister. Perhaps he will tell us why he did not.
	Butler shows what a sorry mess the run-up to the war was. Many misjudgments were made at many levels. Some people have paid for those misjudgments with their jobs, among them the chairman and director-general of the BBC. Butler speaks of "collective blame" at Government level, yet no one here pays the price—indeed, one person gets promotion. In the end, the responsibility rests with the Prime Minister—not just theoretically or semantically, but in a very real way. The buck stops with him. Today he has failed to restore his credibility, and it is unlikely that he will be trusted in the future, when that trust may be crucial. That is the reality that he must face up to; that is the dangerous vacuum that he should urgently be seeking to mend.

Jack Straw: As the right hon. and learned Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) has said, this has been a wide-ranging debate with some very good speeches. With apologies to those whose speeches I do not mention, I want to mention particularly those of the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), my right hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook), my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) and the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack).
	Since a point of order was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), I should apologise for the fact that I was absent for some of the speeches. I am afraid that one has to blame Cabinet Government for that, and, I might add, without approval from the Cabinet, the new hours—[Hon. Members: "Hear, hear."] On that, I speak entirely in a personal capacity. I had to chair an important Cabinet Committee, the timing of which had been rearranged twice to accommodate changes in the order of speeches and the timing of this debate. I apologise to those right hon. and hon. Members whose speeches I missed.
	I want to begin this wind-up by paying tributes to two groups of people. The first group are our armed forces and civilians who have been working in Iraq over many months and who continue to do so. The reputation of British forces is second to none in the world: I do not happen to believe that that is a cliché; I happen to believe that it is true. All that I have seen of the British forces confirms the truth of that—they are the finest and bravest forces anywhere in the world. I have also had the privilege of going to Iraq three times and seeing the extraordinary work by civilians, too. Although they were not putting themselves directly in harm's way as our forces were, they too showed great courage in working in Baghdad, Basra and elsewhere. Our colleagues in the armed forces and civilian British officials are still there helping to rebuild a better Iraq.
	The second group to whom I want to pay tribute are those who work in our intelligence and security agencies. Over the past seven years, I have had the privilege first of being responsible for the Security Service—MI5—and, for the past few years, for the Secret Intelligence Service and GCHQ. From my direct, day-to-day, comprehensive dealings with all three agencies, I have been profoundly impressed by their professionalism, by their commitment and, as questions have been raised about this, by their complete integrity.
	As we spelled out in the dossier, intelligence rarely offers a complete account of activities, which, by definition, are designed to remain concealed. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister spelled out in his foreword that gathering intelligence—in this case, inside Iraq, but, I might add, almost anywhere—is not easy. Certainly, that is absolutely true. But in chapter 2 of the Butler report, the Butler committee spells out details of intelligence-led operations in respect of A.Q. Khan, the nuclear proliferator, Libya, North Korea and Iran. I have been familiar over the past three years, and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has been familiar over the past seven years, with the nature of those operations. We have had an opportunity more recently, certainly in respect of A.Q. Khan and Libya, and to a degree, in respect of North Korea, to make an assessment about whether that intelligence has turned out to be right or wrong. Butler and his committee say in terms that they have been very impressed by the quality of the intelligence and by its provenance.
	In many circumstances, the only defect of that intelligence has been that it has underestimated the scale of what we have subsequently found, rather than overestimated that. I say that because Ministers and the intelligence services' assessment of the intelligence and developments needs to be seen in that context: it was the very same people who were supervising, and in some cases obtaining, the good intelligence in respect of Iran, Libya, North Korea and A.Q. Khan who were also doing the very careful assessment in respect of intelligence in the case of Iraq. They were doing their best, we had every reason to believe that they were doing their best, and their track record is one of the best.

Lynne Jones: Could my right hon. Friend explain why GCHQ intercept information, which we are told by the Intelligence and Security Committee existed, was not passed on to the International Atomic Energy Agency, as was required under Security Council Resolution 1441, whereby member states should pass on all relevant information?

Jack Straw: My hon. Friend knows very well that we never, ever, give details of interception, and I would not begin to do so. As she also knows, or at least I hope that she does, I wrote to her and signed off this morning—so that she would get it in time for this debate—a detailed letter replying to her specific concerns. Her specific concerns related to uranium yellowcake, which has been the cause of controversy. As I set out in the letter, I invite her to examine the conclusions of the Butler inquiry in respect of uranium yellowcake from Niger. As to whether the claims made by British intelligence—not those made elsewhere—were well founded, as Butler points out, they were indeed well founded.

Alex Salmond: What about the withdrawal by the Secret Intelligence Service in July last year of two reports, because the sources had been discredited, on WMD generally and on the 45-minute claim specifically? When were the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister informed of that withdrawal, and whom did they then tell?

Jack Straw: The withdrawal about which I was informed in September, which took place in July, did not relate to the 45-minute claim but to other intelligence to which Butler refers in the body of his report, which had not been directly included in the dossier or the JIC assessment but, as he spells out, gave some comfort and backing to the assessments that had been made. I was informed about that on 8 September last year. On the next day, the intelligence reports were passed on to the Intelligence and Security Committee. The Intelligence and Security Committee had been told orally by the head of the Secret Intelligence Service in July about the nature of that intelligence and the fact that it was being withdrawn. What I was asked, on 8 September, was whether I agreed, as I am required to do by law, to authorise the passing of the intelligence to the ISC, and I duly did so.

Andrew MacKay: rose—

Andrew MacKinlay: rose—

Jack Straw: I want to answer some of the other points that have been made in this debate.
	I have mentioned Iran. My right hon. Friend the Member for Livingston raised two key issues. First, he raised an issue about Iran and referred to an interesting report that appeared in the The Times on Saturday. All that I can say to him is that I do not believe that what is suggested in that is United States policy, but that is a matter for the United States Administration. Certainly, it is not the policy of Her Majesty's Government.
	My right hon. Friend also raised the wider and critical issue of pre-emption. He asked for a commitment that we would never again agree to pre-emptive action. We did not, in my judgment, agree on 18 March last year to a pre-emptive action. Pre-emption implies rushing to judgment—I do not believe that 12 years involves rushing to judgment, and it took us 12 years in respect of Iraq. The truth is that since the United Nations charter and chapter VII—which is the chapter authorising military action—were drafted, circumstances have changed, and we in the House, and the international community, must take account of those changed circumstances. We faced that over Rwanda and Bosnia in the mid-1990s, and we did nothing. I applaud my right hon. Friend for the fact that by 1999, when we faced similar genocide and ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, he took the lead—in the international community and the House—in arguing for action, although we did not have a Security Council resolution and could not get one because we knew that one country would veto it. Let me also say that the action that we authorised in the House on 18 March was no more pre-emptive than Operation Desert Fox in 1998, and was based in part on non-compliance with the same resolutions.
	Many of my right hon. and hon. Friends who have taken a different view from the Government—and many Conservative Members—in respect of Iraq have said that containment and sanctions were working. It is extremely important—because it goes to the heart of whether there was a real alternative in March last year—to spell out the truth of that situation. Operation Desert Fox took place shortly after the inspectors had effectively been kicked out at the end of 1998. In 1999, we finally secured Security Council resolution 1284 to get the inspectors back in, but that resolution was not unanimous. Some of those who had said they would support it in the UN failed to do so. The resolution was wholly defective, in that it watered down previous requirements on the Saddam regime in respect of the admission of inspectors. The inspectors, for example, had no power to enter various key sites in Iraq, including vast presidential palaces, without the permission of Saddam Hussein himself.
	Not only was the resolution defective, it simply had no effect. Despite the fine words of resolution 1284, Saddam simply thumbed his nose at the resolution and at the international community and refused to comply with any of the terms. In the intervening period, containment absolutely failed to work. Containment required at least some element of co-operation from Saddam, and he absolutely refused to co-operate at all.
	Alongside that, it is said that sanctions were working. Sanctions were not working in terms of the objective set for them. Sanctions were hitting the poor of Iraq, making them poorer and less well. Sixty per cent. of Iraqis were on food aid. Sanctions were not working to hit the regime or to undermine its own capabilities and prominence. They did not hurt the rich and the powerful, who continued to be able to divert huge resources—which should have gone to the poor of Iraq—for their own ends.
	A number of Members have referred to 11 September—

Gordon Prentice: Before my right hon. Friend deals with that, may I take him forward to the period between January and February 2003? Hans Blix had told us that he had visited the sites most likely to harbour weapons of mass destruction. He did not find any, and he had a telephone conversation with our right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on 20 February. Why was there no re-evaluation of the intelligence following Hans Blix's statement?

Jack Straw: I shall deal with that in a second. I was not listening in to the telephone conversation with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister—just to reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Lynne Jones)—but my right hon. Friend had many conversations with Dr. Blix. So did I. I went to the Security Council five times in 10 weeks over that period, but we did not require a telephone conversation with the Prime Minister to let us know what Dr. Blix thought; nor did we require any intelligence about Iraq. What we did have were Dr. Blix's reports on the Security Council table—on 27 January 2003, on 14 February 2003, on 28 February 2003 and on 7 March 2003. Each of those statements from Dr. Blix made it clear that the Iraqi regime was simply not co-operating.

Gregory Barker: rose—

Robert Marshall-Andrews: rose—

Lynne Jones: rose—

Jack Straw: No, I will not give way. I have already given way to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak. What I will do—as my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice) has raised the issue of non-compliance—is refer the House to pages 188 to 196 of the Butler report, which explain how Iraq had failed to comply with resolution 1441.
	I respect most of those who disagreed with the House's decision on 18 March to go to war, but I ask colleagues to remember that—as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister pointed out so eloquently earlier today—once resolution 1441 had been passed, the argument was not about intelligence. Once the resolution had been passed, the argument about intelligence fell away. I scarcely, if at all, remember referring to intelligence of any kind, still less to 45 minutes.

Robert Marshall-Andrews: rose—

Lynne Jones: rose—

Jack Straw: I have already given way to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak.
	The issue was whether there had been compliance with resolution 1441. Resolution 1441 laid down, in very specific terms, very clear obligations on Saddam Hussein—first, for a full, complete and accurate disclosure of everything he had by 9 December. Saddam failed to make that full, complete and accurate disclosure by 9 December. So that the House understands the transparency with which we dealt with the issue before it, let me say that I submitted to the House a lengthy statement about Iraqi non-compliance with resolution 1441, giving chapter and verse of how Iraq had failed to comply.
	There is only one respect, in this document, in which what I said was based on intelligence. It is contained in 10 pages. It concerns the requirement for Saddam Hussein to allow scientists to be interviewed—without tape recorders, without bugs in walls, without five minders turning up with the scientists, which was what happened to begin with—and in certain circumstances to allow them to be interviewed outside as well as inside Iraq. We said that that requirement had not been met. That was patent to everyone: intelligence was not needed. However—I own up to this—we went on to say
	"There is evidence that Iraqi scientists have been intimidated into refusing interviews outside Iraq. They—and their families—have been threatened with execution if they deviate from the official line."
	The other 10 pages arose from facts that were known publicly. I do not think anyone would seriously dispute that Saddam was a murderer, ready to threaten execution for far lesser crimes than he would have had in mind—and he most certainly would have done so.
	Moreover, what is absolutely the case is that Saddam did refuse to allow scientists to be properly interviewed. He did refuse compliance. As I told my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle, I was in the Security Council five times, and on none of those occasions—not on 20 January, not on 27 January, not on 5 February, not on 14 February, not on 7 March—did one of the other 14 members of the Security Council ever say that Saddam was in compliance with the terms of resolution 1441. That is what we need to remember. That was the basis on which we put a motion to the House on 18 March, and the basis on which we went to war.

Tam Dalyell: rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.

Question put, That the Question be now put:—
	The House divided: Ayes 41, Noes 255.

Question accordingly negatived.
	It being after Eight o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Bill

Lords message considered.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I inform the House that privilege is involved in Lords amendment No. 28H. If the House agrees to the amendment, I will arrange for the necessary entry to be made in the Journal.
	Lords amendment No. 28DA

David Lammy: I beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this we may consider Lords amendment No. 28H.

David Lammy: Last week, the other place agreed to the amendments proposed by this House, but proposed that two further consequential amendments be made. Amendment No. 28DA is consequential on amendments Nos. 28C and 28D, already agreed by this House. These amendments introduce an additional flexibility to the procedure for the review process in the High Court. That will be after a case has been considered by the new asylum and immigration tribunal—[Interruption.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Could hon. Members leaving the Chamber do so quickly and quietly, so that we can make progress with the next business?

David Lammy: That process will be after a case has been considered by the new asylum and immigration tribunal and a party to the appeal has claimed that the tribunal has made an error of law.
	In the majority of cases, the judge in the High Court will simply look at the applicant's papers to decide whether or not there may have been an error of law. However, in some circumstances, it may be appropriate for other submissions to be considered. For example, it might be helpful for the respondent to file submissions in fast-track cases. Where speed is key, allowing respondents' submissions would enable the reconsideration to take place more quickly.
	Amendments Nos. 28C and 28D allowed rules of court to make provision for that flexibility. Amendment No. 28DA introduces a similar flexibility while the filter is in place. For a transitional period, the tribunal will first consider the review application. The amendment means that the rules of procedure for the AIT can similarly allow the tribunal to consider additional papers.

Dominic Grieve: How long is it intended that the transitional period will last?

David Lammy: The hon. Gentleman will know that the transitional period has very much been devised in consultation with the judges themselves, who are conscious that asylum levels remain, as we move to a new system, at a level that they can handle. I cannot tell the hon. Gentleman exactly how long the transitional period will be in place, but it is right to give the tribunal the opportunity to consider the application before it goes up, as it were, to the High Court.

Neil Gerrard: On the transitional period, one matter on which people will want to be clear is which cases will be caught by it and whether it will then fall into the new system. Will the Minister confirm exactly how that will work?

David Lammy: All cases that are appealed from the initial determination by the tribunal will be caught within the transitional net and within the proximity of the tribunal's being able to make the initial determination as to whether it needs to be reconsidered or the High Court should look into it again. All cases that are appealed beyond that tribunal determination—or at least all cases in which the parties chose to make the application—would be caught by it. It would be surprising if they did not want the tribunal to look further into the case before it goes to the High Court.
	I will now turn briefly to amendment No. 28H. Members will recall that when we considered the Bill last week, the Government brought forward amendments to provisions for new legal aid arrangements for the review and reconsideration process. Those amendments responded to concerns expressed in the other place that the focus of the scheme should be on merit and not just on success. That has always been the Government's intention and we recognised that the Bill was perhaps not clear on that point.
	Amendments Nos. 28F and 28G met many of the concerns raised, but clearly not all, which is why, following discussions, we tabled amendment No. 28H in the other place. The amendment is designed to enable the High Court to award legal aid for the review application even if no reconsideration order or Court of Appeal referral has been made. Examples of when the power might be used include when a reference to the Court of Appeal is made or when a review application is made with good prospects of success, but is then rendered unsuccessful because a lead case on the subject was decided after the application had been lodged. It is clear that that might arise in exceptional cases. In the vast majority of cases, however, the tribunal will be best placed to take the decision on funding at the reconsideration.
	On that basis, I ask hon. Members to agree to amendments Nos. 28DA and 28H.

Dominic Grieve: I agree that Lords amendment No. 28DA is a tidying-up amendment, and I accept that the filter procedure is necessary while the courts continue to be burdened. The Minister is therefore to be commended for making sure that the rules governing the filter system and the review by the tribunal follow the approach taken by the High  Court. The amendment is therefore quite unexceptionable and we are happy to support it.
	Lords amendment No. 28H concerns legal aid. When this matter was before the House on Monday last week, it was clear that Lord Filkin had assured my noble Friend Lord Kingsland that conditional fee agreements would not be imposed in respect of asylum claims. The Minister was kind enough then to give a number of assurances that the Bill would be amended, but it was clear that there had been a lacuna in respect of review, as opposed to reconsideration. The amendment remedies that and I am grateful to the Minister for dealing with that matter. I am happy to accept this amendment as well.
	That disposes of this extremely complex Bill. In conclusion, I shall only say that I am delighted that the official Opposition have been able to set the pace and to rewrite and restructure the Bill as it has passed through both Houses. It bodes well when one sees a Government following the Opposition and dancing to their tune.

Alistair Carmichael: Today appears to be a day for the Conservatives to start rewriting very recent history. I suspect that the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) has just given us the most recent example of that. However, today also seems to be a day for the Liberal Democrats to outdo the Conservatives. I suspect that I can outdo the hon. Gentleman in terms of brevity as well.
	We still have some concerns about the procedures contained in the Lords amendments. We are especially worried about the lack of flexibility associated with written determinations at this stage in the appeal procedures. Time will tell whether that can be made to work.
	I have one final question for the Minister, in connection with the legal aid provisions. The Bill, quite properly, is silent about legal aid in Scotland, which is a matter for the Scottish Executive. However, there is no doubt that the provision of legal aid is an important part of the deal that has been struck. Will the Minister say whether any discussions have been held with the Scottish Executive about the provision of legal aid for cases before the Court of Session? What response has been received from the Scottish Executive?

David Lammy: Discussions have been held and they are ongoing.
	Lords amendment No. 28DA agreed to.
	Lords amendment No. 28H agreed to [Special Entry.]

ENERGY BILL [LORDS] (PROGRAMME) (NO. 2)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Orders [28 June 2001 and 6 November 2003],
	That the following provisions shall apply to the Energy Bill [Lords] for the purpose of supplementing the Order of 10th May 2004:
	Consideration of Lords Message of 15th July
	1. Proceedings on consideration of the Lords Message of 15th July relating to the Bill shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement at this day's sitting.
	Subsequent stages
	2. Any further Message from the Lords may be considered forthwith without any Question put.
	3. Proceedings on any further Message from the Lords shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement.—[Ms Bridget Prentice.]
	The House divided: Ayes 311, Noes 46.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Energy Bill

Lords message considered.
	Lords amendment: No. 10A.

Stephen Timms: I beg to move, That this House does not insist on Commons amendment No. 10 to which the Lords have disagreed, and agrees to their amendments to the words so restored to the Bill.
	We argued in both Houses that the three pillars of sustainable development—economic, social and environmental—are already covered by legislation. However, not everybody was convinced by the persuasive arguments that I advanced. We have listened closely to views from both Houses. I was especially impressed by the strong feelings expressed on Report by my hon. Friends. I am also aware that the sustainability duty has considerable cross-party support and that it has support outside the House, including from industry.
	There is a widespread view that the current arrangements leave a gap. My hon. Friends have argued that if the duty can be made to work for the water regulator, why not for energy? The proposed amendment thus closely follows provisions in the Water Act 2003 and, for consistency, we are amending the Gas Act 1986 so that there is a similar duty in respect of gas and electricity.
	I am pleased and relieved finally to be arguing that a sustainable development duty be added to those already imposed on the Secretary of State and the Gas and Electricity Markets Authority under the Gas and Electricity Acts, reflecting our strong commitment to sustainable development.

Laurence Robertson: I am amazed that the Minister's eloquence failed to persuade everybody. We support the amendment.
	The Bill, which we support, has been greatly improved by work in another place; in particular, Lady Miller of Hendon, Earl Attlee and Lord Jenkin have done an incredible amount of work and have added provisions that have made the Bill even better. I do not intend to detain the House, so I will say only that the Government have our support for the amendment.

Brian White: As I have been arguing for such a provision since the passage of the Utilities Act 2000, I am grateful to the Minister for proposing the amendment, which will be key to Ofgem's response to the Bill. Ofgem responded well to the regulatory impact assessment provisions of the Sustainable Energy Act 2003, so I am sure that it will respond equally well to the new duty set out in the Energy Bill.
	I thank the Minister again for listening and for taking on board the views of his Back Benchers.

Andrew Stunell: We, too, welcome this very important step back from the Minister's original position. We need to remember that a majority in Committee believed that the clause should stay in the Bill and that the Government insisted that it should come out. I am delighted that they have had second thoughts and that they are taking a much more rational approach to gas, water, electricity and, of course, sustainability, which is the key element of the strategy that was missing before. We very much welcome the Government's change of heart.

Colin Challen: I echo the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, North-East (Brian White) and thank my hon. Friend the Minister for his consideration of the words "sustainable development", which are very important because they are more concise and define more clearly what some of us who sit on the Labour Back Benches were always seeking: the proposed extra duty. That is to his credit. Indeed, I praise how he took us through the Committee, clearly showing a very good grasp of the brief, which has persuaded us in the end that we are now pursuing the right course.

Michael Weir: I am sorry to break the love-in over the clause. I support the aspect relating to sustainability, but it seems to point to a contradiction in relation to sustainability that lies at the very heart of the Bill—a contradiction that my colleagues and I have mentioned on numerous opportunities.
	This amendment relates to the duty of the Secretary of State and the Gas and Electricity Market Authority in relation to sustainability. That is fine in so far as it goes, but a large part of the argument about sustainability relates to renewable energy, particularly in the north of Scotland. The amendment would give GEMA a role in achieving sustainability, but I have serious concerns about the role of Ofgem, which has been mentioned already.
	In Committee and on Report, I referred to transmission charges in the north of Scotland. The Minister may not be surprised to learn that that issue is at the heart of my concerns because those charges will have a huge impact on sustainability. As part of our preparation for the debates on Report, my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) and I met representatives of Ofgem to press our concerns about their policy on transmission charges. Three times during that meeting Ofgem's representatives were asked whether they supported the Government's targets for renewable energy; three times they refused to answer.
	I can only conclude therefore that Ofgem is not interested in pursuing policies that would assist in establishing those targets. I ask the Minister just what effect the amendment would have on dealing with the regulators? How will GEMA
	"contribute to the achievement of sustainable development",
	as the amendment states, when the regulator seems to be acting in direct contradiction to the policy that is supposedly being pursued by the Government and, presumably, by the Secretary of State?
	The problem goes further than that, however, because what Ofgem and the National Grid Company wish to pursue by means of locational charges will lead to a huge increase in transmission charges in northern Scotland. Given that clause 177 provides a sunset provision solely to help renewable generators with those charges, the economic viability of future renewable energy projects in the north of Scotland will be completely undermined, thus seriously damaging the only existing conventional generator there—the most efficient combined gas cycle plant in Europe.
	At that meeting with Ofgem's representatives, I asked why they thought that the charges should be higher in the north of Scotland. They replied that they felt that generation capacity should be located nearer to centres of population because of the large number of applications for generating capacity in Scotland. I ask hon. Members to think about that for a moment in the light of the fact that, under the amendment, the sustainability objective will be imposed on the Secretary of State and GEMA.
	I would put it to Ofgem that there were so many applications in northern Scotland because they were for renewable energy development and that it was the obvious and most appropriate area for such projects, as the Government recognise in clause 177. Ofgem, to be fair, agreed with that. The regulators accepted that renewable generators were seeking to set up in the area, which the Government recognise as suitable for such generation, but in pursuance of their own madcap economic theory, those regulators were seeking effectively to price the generators out of the market by imposing substantial transmission charges.

Brian White: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that this was not included in Ofgem's terms of reference, so Ofgem was right to look at economic interests? With the amendment, it will have to take into account renewables and his argument will be completely different in future.

Michael Weir: I do not accept that. Throughout the passage of the Bill there have been arguments about Ofgem in particular. My meeting with Ofgem left me extremely depressed. I do not think that it has any idea about the realities of renewable energy, that there is any support for renewable energy within Ofgem, or that the provision will make much difference. It will mean that projects will be sabotaged.

Paddy Tipping: The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Does he believe that Ofgem should be disestablished?

Michael Weir: In its present form, Ofgem is not serving the move towards renewable energy well. In my discussions with its representatives, it seems to be intent on sabotaging that. Hon. Members may draw their own conclusions from that. If someone is going to set up a renewable energy generation system in the north of Scotland they will, at best, face a massive increase in transmission charges halfway through the life of that project. That would mean that Ofgem—if there is anyone on the Tory Benches, perhaps they should listen to this—wanted to see a massive expansion of energy production not in Scotland but in southern England. Perhaps we can envisage large wind farms across the Sussex downs, or tidal barrages in the English channel.
	The amendment seeks to impose on both the Secretary of State and GEMA a duty to pursue sustainability, yet other provisions in the Bill and the work of Ofgem in particular will undermine that. That contradiction is at the heart of the Bill. Even with the amendment, I do not think that the clause will contribute to the achievement of sustainable development.

Desmond Turner: I add my gratitude to my hon. Friend the Minister for the amendment. We had several quite intense debates about the role of the Secretary of State and Ofgem in relation to renewable and sustainable energy. It is a matter of great joy to me that the will of the populace has prevailed. The Minister has recognised not only that Ofgem is a pivotal player in determining future growth of renewable and sustainable energy, but that it has been seen as something of a barrier and has operated on neo-liberal economic principles that were not compatible with some of the difficulties of renewable energy. That recognition is now in the Bill and it is totally consistent with the Government's intentions. I always think that that is what legislation should be like—it should say what it means on the tin. Now that we have the amendment, I am very glad.
	On the point that was made by the hon. Member for Angus (Mr. Weir) concerning the effect of locational charges on renewable generators, I still have some difficulties with the locational charges argument. After all, wave heights and tidal streams are not very strong at the notional centre of consumption just north of Birmingham. The system disfavoured renewable energy and therefore needed the protection of clause 177, or clause 181, depending on which version of the printed Bill one looks at.
	Unfortunately, the Bill contains sunset clauses. I still cannot understand why they are there. It is slightly sad that we ran out of time on Report in the House and did not get to the amendments seeking to delete those sunset clauses. It is important, if we are going to make the best use of the magnificent natural resources off the north-west coast of Scotland, that we give investors the confidence to tackle the big challenges that they face over and above the straight commercial challenge. On the face of it, the sunset clauses introduce a note of unpredictability and uncertainty, and a lack of protection.

Michael Weir: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that more is at stake? The time scale for the projects is very long—it will probably be about 25 years—but there is a maximum of 10 years relating to investment. Not all projects will necessarily start at the beginning of that 10-year period.

Desmond Turner: The hon. Gentleman is right; I was about to make the same point, and he has saved me the labour of doing so.
	I suggest to my hon. Friend the Minister that the Government will have to address that issue and give some assurance to investors in renewable energy that there will be consistency of approach over a time span sufficient to match the development and investment time scale that is involved.
	We have made a significant step forward with the amendment. I am grateful to the Minister and I do not think that anyone will oppose it.

Stephen Timms: With the leave of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
	I am grateful to my hon. Friends the Members for Milton Keynes, North-East (Brian White), for Morley and Rothwell (Mr. Challen) and for Brighton, Kemptown (Dr. Turner) for their kind remarks. I am also grateful to the hon. Members for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson) and for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell), who both played a very constructive part in our debates in Committee and in the House, as have hon. Friends of theirs who have had the opportunity to speak in this debate. I agree with what the hon. Member for Tewkesbury said about the constructive contribution that has been made in the other place as well.
	I think that the hon. Member for Angus (Mr. Weir) spoke in favour of the amendment. I was not entirely sure, but I believe that that was the import of his speech. I understand the point that he raised, which has been drawn to my attention by others as well. There is a process that will lead to a decision on transmission charging later in the year, and it will be for the independent regulator to make that decision in the light of the duties that have been imposed on it. I would not want to anticipate at this stage precisely what the outcome will be, but I understand the concerns that he has raised.
	I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown is right and that the amendment will command universal approval.
	Lords amendment No. 10A agreed to.
	Lords amendment No. 10B agreed to.
	Lords amendment No. 17A to Commons amendment No. 17 agreed to.

DELEGATED LEGISLATION

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With the permission of the House, we shall take motions 6, 7 and 8 together.
	Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6)(Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

Devolution

That the draft Regional Assembly and Local Government Referendums (Date of Referendums, Referendum Question and Explanatory Material) (North West Region) Order 2004, which was laid before this House on 8th July, be approved.
	That the draft Regional Assembly and Local Government Referendums (Date of Referendums, Referendum Question and Explanatory Material) (North East Region) Order 2004, which was laid before this House on 8th July, be approved.
	That the draft Regional Assembly and Local Government Referendums (Date of Referendums, Referendum Question and Explanatory Material) (Yorkshire and the Humber Region) Order 2004, which was laid before this House on 8th July, be approved.—[Gillian Merron.]
	Question agreed to.

DRAFT MENTAL HEALTH BILL (JOINT COMMITTEE)

Ordered,
	That the Lords Message of 15th July relating to a Joint Committee of both Houses to consider and report on any draft Mental Health Bill presented to both Houses by a Minister of the Crown, be now considered.
	That this House concurs with the Lords that it is expedient that a Joint Committee of Lords and Commons be appointed to consider and report on any draft Mental Health Bill presented to both Houses by a Minister of the Crown, and that the Committee should report on the draft Bill by 31st March 2005.
	That a Select Committee of 12 honourable Members be appointed to join with the Committee appointed by the Lords to consider the draft Mental Health Bill.
	That the Committee shall have power—
	(i) to send for persons, papers and records;
	(ii) to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House;
	(iii) to report from time to time;
	(iv) to appoint specialist advisers;
	(v) to adjourn from place to place within the United Kingdom.
	That the quorum of the Committee shall be two; and
	That Mrs Liz Blackman, Mrs Angela Browning, Mr David Hinchliffe, Mr George Howarth, Tim Loughton, Mr Paul Marsden, Laura Moffatt, Ms Meg Munn, Dr Doug Naysmith, Mr Gwyn Prosser, Dr Howard Stoate and Hywel Williams be members of the Committee.—[Gillian Merron.]
	Message to the Lords to acquaint them therewith.

PETITIONS
	 — 
	Fuel Duty

Peter Duncan: The voice of rural Dumfries and Galloway has not always been heard by this Government, but wind of this petition has clearly blown across Parliament square to the Treasury. Faced with the signatures of thousands of my constituents, the Chancellor announced late today another postponement in the proposed 2p a litre rise in tax on petrol and diesel. That increase displays callous disregard for rural motorists and their anger on this issue cannot be put aside; it must be acted on.
	The petition states:
	To the House of Commons,
	The petition of residents of Dumfries and Galloway,
	Declares that further increases in tax on petrol will have an adverse effect on the livelihoods of those living and working in Dumfries and Galloway.
	The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Chancellor of the Exchequer to reverse his decision to impose the increase in tax on petrol due to be implemented in September 2004.
	And the petitioners remain, etc.
	To lie upon the Table.

Victoria Road Post Office

Andrew Rosindell: I rise this evening to present a petition of no fewer than 731 of my constituents of Romford who are deeply concerned by the prospect that one of their local post offices could be closed under the current review being conducted by Post Office Ltd. The petitioners are concerned that the Victoria road post office could be yet another victim of the review and the policy that has led to post office closures throughout the country.
	The Victoria road post office serves the area of my constituency between Victoria road in central Romford and the Brentwood road, which borders the constituency of Hornchurch. It serves a large community, and many elderly people live in the area and depend heavily on the services that it provides. It is a focal point in the community and if it were to close, it would have a damaging effect on the local area.
	The petition is supported by all shopkeepers in Victoria road and the surrounding area of central Romford. It is strongly supported by St. Alban's church in Princes road in Romford, together with the parents of children at local schools, including Manor primary school. It is also supported by members of the local residents association—the New Century residents association—and has the backing of the three local councillors for the Romford Town ward: Wendy Brice-Thompson, Frederic Thompson and Andrew Curtin. The main signatory to the petition is Mr. Ajit Chaterjee, a former teacher of mine at Marshalls Park school.
	The petition reads as follows:
	To the House of Commons
	The Petition of the People of the Victoria Road area of Romford
	Declares that Victoria Road Post Office is threatened with closure. The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons does all in its power to keep Victoria Road Post Office open.
	And the Petitioners Remain, etc.
	To lie upon the Table.

MR. ROSS DONOVAN

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Gillian Merron.]

Alistair Burt: I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to raise in the House the case of my constituent, Ross Donovan, who I believe has lost his business as a result of negligence and carelessness by the Environment Agency and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. I am pleased that the Minister for the Environment and Agri-environment is in the Chamber because he has taken a personal interest in the matter and has met my constituent and me. I hope that he will be in a position to shed some light on my remarks.
	Ross Donovan is a chartered engineer by profession and he is 45 years old. He has a degree in mechanical engineering, a masters degree in manufacturing management and is a member of his professional body, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. I suggest, therefore, that he is a man of some competence and reliability.
	Ross Donovan's work in industry has taken him to several different businesses, but some years ago he worked for Silver Spoon on an energy recovery system and developed a specialty in such matters. Aware of legislation such as the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations 1997, the climate change levy and landfill tax, together with the rising cost—in all senses of the word—of fossil fuels, he was persuaded that a new market existed for alternative heating systems. He believed that some businesses with heating needs could use their cardboard packaging, otherwise treated as waste, as a fuel. As many businesses used baling machines to achieve volume minimisation of their cardboard waste, it made sense to design a system that could process such standard sized bales. The system would not be a substantial size, but modest and small scale.
	In simple terms, Ross Donovan set out to design a machine that would burn bales of cardboard and use the heat generated to warm a space that required it. Accordingly, he raised money from sponsors to back up his idea and constructed a prototype.
	Aware of the regulatory nature of incineration issues, Mr. Donovan sought the advice of the Environment Agency in Brampton, Cambridgeshire. On 14 February 2001, he wrote to it and said:
	"Further to our recent conversations I wish to confirm that it is our intention to site a prototype"
	waste-to-energy
	"plant at the above location. The plant is fuelled by packaging waste such as paper, cardboard and possibly wood and is designed to have a maximum net thermal input of 395 kW. I have now studied Statutory Instrument 2000 . . . The Pollution Prevention and Control (England and Wales) Regulations 2000 and believe that the above plant is outside the scope of this document. Please can you confirm this is true?"
	He concluded:
	"Additionally is there any other legislation that the"
	waste-to-energy plant
	"is required to comply with? Your prompt attention to this matter would be appreciated."
	On 28 February 2001, Mr. Donovan received a reply. It mentioned the need to comply with the Environmental Protection Act 1990, the Pollution Prevention and Control (England and Wales) Regulations 2000 and the Waste Management Licensing Regulations 1994, and Mr. Donovan was invited to complete a form to return to Brampton under the latter regulations so that
	"The Agency will note your details on the public register".
	There was no mention of something called the waste incineration directive. Based on the letter and the legislative requirements of which he was aware, Mr. Donovan constructed a prototype system. It burned bales of cardboard and provided cheap heating for about 6,000 sq m of glasshouses in a horticultural nursery.
	The Environment Agency was approached a number of times to seek guidance on different issues regarding the operation of the system. Mr. Donovan keeps meticulous notes, as we would expect from his background and qualifications, and believed the Environment Agency was well aware of what he was testing and developing—after all, he was on a register. Indeed, in June 2002 the system was consuming so much cardboard that he needed a new source of supply and he approached the Environment Agency, as it was likely to be aware of where he could source it, and it duly obliged.
	In November 2002, Mr. Donovan visited a trade show at Olympia and met a Scottish company dealing in woodchip-based energy systems. During their conversation, the company raised the waste incineration directive. Mr. Donovan looked at the website of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency. From that site, he felt reassured that the waste incineration directive applied only to larger incinerators than his, but he decided to double check and spoke to the Environment Agency. He was told not to worry as his system was below the threshold limit—in effect, too small.
	By July 2003, the system was good enough to be marketed and after all the time and effort Mr. Donovan put in, after applying for and being granted five patents, he received firm orders for two machines, but only, said the purchasers, if the system was waste incineration directive approved. On 24 July 2003, he had a meeting with Environment Agency officials. He took with him all the specifications and technical details and the matter was discussed between experts in some detail. He left that meeting with a verbal assurance that, as previously advised, his system was outside the scope of the directive because it was too small. As his purchaser wanted that advice in writing, the Environment Agency said that it would write, checking with its policy unit based in Bristol.
	On 13 August 2003, the Environment Agency wrote the letter that has cost Mr. Donovan his job, his savings and his business. It said that directive 2000/76/EC on the incineration of waste did indeed apply. What were the practical consequences of that? In effect, it required modifications to be made of such scope that the economics of his small-scale business went out the window. For example, the system used a manual firing process. Colloquially put, someone put their hand in, lit a handful of waste paper and, when up and going, the cardboard fuel could be fed in. The regulations indicated that that was not possible and that an expensive gas-firing system should be fitted instead. There were other such modifications.
	Compliance with the directive would make Mr. Donovan's small-scale incinerator uneconomic and he faced ruin. He contacted the Environment Agency again, trying to seek clarification. Was this true? How far did he have to comply? Was there any leeway for this system, so much smaller than the major incineration systems, presumably the target of the regulations? The Environment Agency in Cambridge, with which he had been in contact throughout, had little firm knowledge of the situation and was unsure whether the regulations were in place, but the policy unit had told it that there was no de minimis rule, so no system was too small to be covered.
	My constituent came to see me. He could not understand why the Environment Agency had given him no notice of the likely impact of the directive. After all, he was on a register at its insistence. He was also keen to discover whether there was a way out. Were the rules final, and was there anything that the Government could do for him? He sought help from the Environment Agency and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which had become involved as it had issued the guidance on applying the policy. However, he did not receive any; he was simply told that the directive must apply.
	The de minimis issue, however, remained open, as no one was prepared to confirm that it was completely out of the question. That gave him hope, and he made repeated requests for DEFRA or Environment Agency officials to come and see his system. They did not do so until November, and Mr. Donovan tells me that that was only after I had made some phone calls on his behalf. He says that the officials seemed unaware of the commercial implications of their delay. While they equivocated about advice on a directive to which he had drawn their attention, he was trying to sell an energy system that was flawed, although no one could tell him just how badly. Regrettably, I can confirm my constituent's complaint. I spoke to officials, and afterwards understood why he was concerned as they could neither give a clear answer as to whether his system was covered by the regulations, nor tell him when they might be certain.
	I wrote to the Minister for the Environment and Agri-environment on 23 October 2003 questioning what had happened and looking forward to efforts to find a way out for my constituent. I received a holding reply, then a further reply on 16 November saying that a full reply would follow once officials had visited the site. The Minister finally gave a reply on 1 January 2004. This is not a case in which time did not matter. Mr. Donovan's business was at stake, and I was regularly in touch with the Minister's office seeking a reply. I think that they could all have moved faster.
	The Minister was good enough to agree to a meeting with my constituent and officials on 29 January 2004. To his credit, Mr. Donovan was less concerned about how we had reached the current position than with trying to find a way forward. We expected the Minister and his officials to be as helpful as possible. Could UK officials for once interpret a directive as helpfully as possible for UK manufacturers, rather than find reasons to say no? Mr. Donovan took with him an environmental consultant, Simon James, who asked if virgin cardboard could be used as a fuel without being subject to the regulations. He was informed by officials and the Minister that it could. He then asked whether, if that same cardboard had been previously used or if virgin cardboard was unsuitable for its intended use, it would be allowable as a fuel outside the regulations. He was told that if the intention was to discard the cardboard, it would be waste and thus subject to the regulations. Mr. James suggested that there may be no intention to discard the cardboard, but to segregate it specifically for the alternative use of energy production. As it was intended to be used for energy production, it should fall outside the definition of waste. The Minister agreed to look at the proposal and said that he would seek advice. To reinforce the case, on 27 February Ross Donovan sent the Minister a copy of a letter from Simon James restating his argument.
	We heard nothing from officials or the Minister for a month. On 26 February, I tabled a series of written questions; on 3 March, I wrote to the Minister again, forwarding a copy of Simon James's letter. On 15 March I faxed to the Minister a copy of a letter from Caroline Jackson, MEP, with an idea on the subject. I was faxed a copy of the Minister's reply to her, but I did not receive a reply to my own letters. To date, Simon James has not received a considered opinion on his proposed solution, and Ross Donovan has not received a reply to his letter of 27 February. Yesterday, four and a half months after my letter of 3 March, I received a faxed copy of the Minister's reply—conveniently, a day before this Adjournment debate, and after the Minister had been notified of it.
	During that official silence, Mr. Donovan could not sell his system. Sponsors withdrew funding and took the intellectual patents from Mr. Donovan. He lost his business, his idea and his savings. It is now time to ask the hard questions that have been avoided while my constituent struggled to keep his business going. Why was he not told by the Environment Agency at the earliest possible stage that the directive might affect him? His letter of February 2001 was a clear request for information from those who might have been expected to hold it. It was not as if they did not have such information. According to the Minister's letter to me of 1 January 2004, the consultation on the directive was launched in July 2002. We know that those consultations do not come out of thin air. The directive in draft had been around a good length of time, and the Environment Agency knew of Mr. Donovan's interest and had registered it.
	As for the de minimis point, the Government, according to the Minister at our meeting in January 2004, were discussing de minimis with Commission officials in 2001, and arguing for it, I believe. If that was the case, why was my constituent not made aware of the issue under discussion when he raised a general query in February 2001 or when he made a more specific inquiry in November 2002? Why were such high hopes placed on the argument?
	I spoke last week to Karl Heinz Zirrock in Directorate C, Environment and Health, of the European Commission. He told me that the discussion had gone on for years. There had never been any intention of a threshold, small incinerators had always been a target of the regulations, and the Commission wanted to close them, leaving open for research only experimental testers burning less than 50 tonnes of material a year—a long way from even Mr. Donovan's small-scale commercial system. Mr. Zirrock said that all officials in member countries should have been well aware of those discussions. So why was my constituent not told?
	There are three aspects to this shambles. First, there is clear evidence to suggest that the Environment Agency or DEFRA or both were at fault in not informing my constituent of the likely impact of the waste incineration directive at a time when he could have taken a completely different course of action from the one that he took. Secondly, when he tried to get information from officials to help him move forward, or even some clear decision when the problem of the directive had been made clear, he did not receive it. He found officials slow, indecisive and unhelpful.
	Thirdly, when matters came to the Minister, there were extraordinary delays in letters, despite faxed messages emphasising the need for speed of response as a family's livelihood depended on it. There was a failure to reply to suggestions on a way forward and a general lack of enthusiasm from DEFRA or the EA even to try something sensible as a way forward, in terms of a redefinition of waste and fuel, which might have been of benefit to Mr. Donovan and would have made a difference to the way in which cardboard packaging is dealt with in an environmentally advantageous manner.
	I am not arguing for special dispensation for my constituent or, tonight, for a redefinition of the directive that would have suited his system, although I think there is more than common sense in the proposal from Simon James. There may have been nothing that could be done to amend the directive, but my constituent, fatally, was not told until it was too late. The impact on him has been dreadful and unacceptable. It is with some regret that I initiate this debate. I have been a Minister and I know that errors and problems can occur, but this appalling catalogue of error, delay and indifference, which has cost a professional man dearly, cannot be swept under the carpet without explanation or apology. I call on the Minister to provide both.

Elliot Morley: The hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) has made a comprehensive case on behalf of his constituent. He knows that at our meeting I made a genuine attempt to address his constituent's concerns. As he said, Mr. Donovan proposed an innovative design for burning bales of cardboard. We in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs recognise that energy from waste has a role in the waste hierarchy. It comes below recycling, but we recognise the role that it can play in waste disposal.
	I shall try to deal with the detail of the hon. Gentleman's argument. He is certainly entitled to an explanation and I hope that I can provide that tonight. If there have been any failings on the part of DEFRA, he is owed an apology. I am not sure that there have been any failings on the part of DEFRA, although the hon. Gentleman is free to pursue the detail of my remarks at the end of the debate.
	I am informed that Mr. Donovan wrote to the Environment Agency in February 2001. He sought confirmation that his proposed plant fell outside the scope of the Pollution Prevention and Control Regulations 2000, as the hon. Gentleman stated. The agency confirmed that the plant would not need a permit from the agency under those regulations because it fell below the 1 tonne-per-hour capacity threshold.
	Mr. Donovan also asked in his letter whether his proposed plant would need to comply with any other legislation. He was informed that it would need registration as an exempt activity under the Waste Management Licensing Regulations 1994. The advice that he received was in direct response to his questions and was consistent with national legislation as it then stood.
	On 4 November 2002, Mr. Donovan phoned the Environment Agency to ask whether its technical guidance documents on waste incineration covered his proposed plant. He was told that the agency's technical guidance documents on waste incineration did not because his plant was below the 1 tonne-per-hour capacity threshold above which agency regulation would apply under the pollution prevention and control regulations as they then stood.
	Directive 2000/76/EC on the incineration of waste was finalised on 4 December 2000, and member states had until 28 December 2002 to transpose it into national legislation. The waste incineration directive places stringent design, operational and monitoring requirements on the incineration plant that it covers, together with stringent emission limit values for a range of pollutants. The directive has the stated aim of preventing or limiting, as far as is practicable, negative effects on the environment and resulting risks to human health from the incineration of waste.
	In June 2002, my Department issued a consultation paper on the implementation, asking for responses by 9 September 2002. The waste incineration regulations for England and Wales were finalised in the light of those responses and came into force on 28 December 2002. They have the effect of applying the waste incineration directive's requirements to all incineration plant as defined in the directive, regardless of capacity—so there was no de minimis.
	On 16 January 2003, my predecessor gave a news conference to publicise the transposition of the directive. Draft guidance on the directive and its requirements was published by my Department on 7 February 2003. The consultation document and draft guidance were placed on my Department's website and sent in hard copy to organisations that were known to have an interest. Unfortunately, as my officials were not at that time aware of Asgard Systems Ltd., those documents were not sent direct to that company.

Alistair Burt: The Minister is explaining where the legislation was at each particular stage, but he has not explained this: even though the directive was not in force, it was known about. The agency officials with whom Mr. Donovan was dealing must have known about that directive, so they must have been able to connect what they knew that he was doing, because he had given them full information about it in 2001, with the proposed directive that had been sealed in 2000 but had not yet come into effect. Mr. Donovan and I have never understood why that connection was not made. The agency answered his questions, but did not go wider when he asked for guidance on what other legislation might affect him. That is not good enough.

Elliot Morley: The hon. Gentleman will understand that I cannot speak for the agency. All I know is that Mr. Donovan asked several questions of the agency and was given answers in line with the legislation that applied at the time.
	On 24 July 2003, Mr. Donovan met Environment Agency officials to talk about regulatory requirements applicable to his plant. As the waste incineration regulations had by then come into force, he was informed that the plant was likely to be subject to those requirements. That was confirmed in a letter from the agency dated 13 August.
	Incidentally, the agency has a complaints procedure by which any complaint from Mr. Donovan about the advice that he received would be investigated if he chose to make one. The hon. Gentleman might like to bear that in mind.
	Following my receipt in October 2003 of a letter from the hon. Gentleman about Asgard, my officials, accompanied by an official from the Environment Agency, visited Mr Donovan's premises to examine the plant. At the beginning of January 2004, I wrote to the hon. Gentleman to explain that the plant is considered to be an incineration plant and is therefore subject to the waste incineration directive's requirements. My officials had already written to Mr. Donovan on 16 December informing him of that. They reached that conclusion because of the presence of design features, such as an ash screw and a primary air fan, that are consistent with the description of a technical unit included in the directive's definition of incineration plant.
	I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman made about the definition of waste. The cardboard for which Mr. Donovan's plant was intended does not arise as a by-product from a manufacturing process. As the hon. Gentleman rightly said, if it were such a by-product, it might be treated somewhat differently. It comes, however, from the use of cardboard as packaging. Once the cardboard has served its purpose, the holder discards it and it is therefore considered to be waste under the definition in the waste incineration directive, which in turn is taken from the waste framework directive of 1975 as amended in 1991. The European Commission is currently developing a thematic strategy on the prevention and recycling of waste. We and others have raised the issue of the definition of waste, although the basic definition, as it applied to Mr. Donovan, is unlikely to change.
	The hon. Gentleman wrote a letter to me in March, in which he passed on some of Mr. Donovan's comments about the definition of waste. I wrote back to the hon. Gentleman in April on this matter. As I said in my letter, the ruling of the European Court of Justice in April 2003 deals with the determination of whether a process used for dealing with waste is disposal or recovery, rather than whether a material is waste according to the definition of waste. Indeed, that was something that Christopher Booker, in his comments in The Sunday Telegraph, got completely wrong.

Eric Martlew: That is not unusual.

Elliot Morley: As my hon. Friend says, that is not unusual at all. Indeed, there is a great deal of inaccuracy in most things that that gentleman says in his column.

Alistair Burt: The Minister referred to a letter that he wrote to me in April. I have here a copy of the letter that I was faxed yesterday, and it is dated July. It begins:
	"Thank you for your letter of 3 March 2004 which followed my meeting with you on 29 January 2004. Please accept my apologies for the delay in responding to you."
	It makes no mention of a further letter in April.

Elliot Morley: I noticed that the copy letter that the hon. Gentleman received was dated July. July was the date on which it was sent from the office in the past few days, in response to a query from his own office as to whether it had received a letter. It is not impossible that that letter might have gone astray. All I know is that I remember signing that letter around April, and its being processed at that time. Mistakes happen, however. I do not know the circumstances here, but it might be possible that that letter has gone astray. That would be very unfortunate in the circumstances, but these things happen.
	The ECJ case, which was mentioned by the environmental adviser that Mr. Donovan brought with him, is not relevant to whether cardboard packaging is waste: it is, and the waste incineration directive therefore applies. Mr. Donovan also drew attention to an ECJ case in 2002 known as Palin Granit. Again, my advice is that it is not correct to interpret that as meaning that cardboard packaging segregated for use as a fuel should not be regarded as waste. The ECJ Palin Granit case referred to materials produced in a manufacturing or extraction process. While the Court held that in certain circumstances such materials could be regarded as by-products rather than waste, in Mr. Donovan's case the cardboard has come from the activity of using cardboard as packaging, not from a manufacturing or extraction process. So that is a completely different ruling in a completely different case. The plant's intended use therefore brings it within the scope of the waste incineration directive, which applies regardless of the capacity of the incinerator.
	Mr. Donovan was informed, when he came to talk to my officials and me, that his plant could burn certain vegetable wastes from forestry, agriculture and food production, because those are exempt from control under the directive. Wood chipping is a case in point, for example. It may be that the plant has a niche for use in those circumstances, although other regulatory controls may still apply. The burning of fibrous vegetable waste from the production of paper from pulp is also exempt. However, I am afraid that that exemption does not extend to burning waste cardboard. Although recent developments in European legislation allow the incineration of packaging waste with energy recovery to count towards packaging waste recovery targets, recycling is our preferred means of dealing with waste cardboard. We encourage and welcome innovatory ways of dealing with waste, but it is essential that such approaches are capable of meeting regulatory requirements. I am genuinely sorry that Mr. Donovan's innovation apparently was not.
	I asked officials to do all that they could to examine whether there were ways of assisting Mr. Donovan, which might account for some of the delays—there were complicated legal issues in terms of interpretation—and I am sorry that, in the end, that was not the case. Obviously, I will be only too happy to respond to the hon. Gentleman if he has any further queries in relation to this case. I very much hope that he will accept that while I cannot speak for the Environment Agency in terms of all those procedures, I do not believe that there was any form of deliberate attempt to obstruct Mr. Donovan. As far as my office is concerned, I genuinely believe that when I asked officials to do all that they could to see whether they could assist, they did so. In the end, the regulations were clear, and no more could be done in this case.
	Question put and agreed to.
	Adjourned accordingly at twenty-six minutes past Nine o'clock.